Re: parted check option

[Andrew Clausen]

Hi Tom :-)

Thomas Roelz wrote:
> 
> Hi all!
> 
> As far as I found out by now parted is (luckily) very
> defensive with regard to doing what it is requested to do.
> If something with the disk is not entirely okay it refuses
> to start work. This is very good because it reduces the
> chance to destroy something. Now I wonder if it would be
> useful to have a check option to find out if parted _would_
> execute the required action but _without_ doing it actually.
> This feature might be useful for elaborate error handling
> when running parted in script mode from a shell script or
> such like.

Hmmm.

> I know there is a check option but according to the
> documentation it does only a "simple check on the file system".
> I think there are more checks built in that could be accomplished
> prior to execution.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this.  i.e. "elaborate
error handling", etc. ?

The only case I can think of, is when you want to run many
commands, and you want to check that your entire list of commands
is do-able.  But, the approach you suggest won't work in the
general case.  (eg: think about "swapping partitions", by: shrink A,
shrink B, move A past B, grow A, grow B)  In this case, you have
to "verify" the entire operation list in one go.

This is related to the automatic partitioning, and operation
queue that has been discussed on IRC a lot... we should start 
some discussion here.  I'll write a summary (added to TODO) of what
we have thought about so far...

Andrew Clausen