29 Dec
2021
29 Dec
'21
9:02 p.m.
System V of that era didn't allow moving directories. You can copy them
recursively with find and cpio with the option that makes hard links
and then remove the old directory, or use a standard tar pipeline to
copy the directory tree.
BSD has always allowed moving directories; I *think* that descends
from Research Unix but I don't remember for sure.
HTH,
Arnold
Will Senn <will.senn(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I'm a little flummoxed in trying to move some
directories around in
svr2. Shouldn't the following work?
mkdir a
mkdir b
mv a b
I get the following error:
mv: b exists
I tried many of the possible variants including:
mv a b/
mv: b/ exists
mv a b/a
mv: directory rename only
cd b
mv ../a .
mv: . exists
mv ../a ./
mv: ./ exists
mv ../a ./a
mv: directory rename only
If moving directories into existing directories wasn't allowed in those
days, 1) how were directories managed? and 2) when did moving
directories into directories become a thing?