Re: "-T" option help text

[Philip Rowlands]

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, James R. Van Zandt wrote:

> For the help text, here are some alternatives:
>
>    if DEST is a directory, then delete it first

This isn't what -T does. If DEST is an empty directory then it's 
overwritten with the rename(2) system call. Otherwise mv will fail e.g. 
if SOURCE isn't a directory or DEST is non-empty.

> This is short, but doesn't handle the case of DEST being a
> symbolic link
>
>    if DEST is a directory, or a symbolic link to a directory, then delete it 
> first

This isn't what -T does either. If DEST is a symlink it isn't 
deleted, merely "clobbered" by mv. It's the difference between

rename("file", "DEST/file")  = 0
and
rename("file", "DEST")       = 0

For the short --help description I'd try something like

"disable special directory handling for DEST"


Cheers,
Phil