Re: poor mv error message

[The Wanderer]

Eric Blake wrote:

> We probably ought to make this error message smarter:
>
> $ mkdir a
> $ mv a/. b
> mv: cannot move `a/.' to a subdirectory of itself, `b'

Perhaps interestingly, with coreutils 5.97 (still the latest in Debian),
I get a different message:

$ mkdir a
$ mv a/. b
mv: cannot move `a/.' to `b': Device or resource busy

(For the record, 'b' does not exist, and this same behaviour has
occurred in multiple locations on different devices.)

An strace reveals nothing I can interpret beyond the fact that, as is
perhaps obvious, rename(2) is returning EBUSY.

For all I know, there may be known reasons why this would not be all
that surprising, but it's different enough that I felt it worth
commenting on.

--
      The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.