1.1.10 Problem: mv and directories in use

[Dwight Schauer]

I believe the main source of the problem is a Windows "BUG" (Not really a 
bug, that is how Windows is "intended" to work). Anyways, it is an 
undesirable "feature" for sure, and very annoying when in the Cygwin 
enviornment. For the average joe Windows user in Windows Explorer it "kind 
of" makes sense that Windows works this way.

If bash (or cmd) is in a particular directory just sitting at the prompt, 
that directory is in use, then that problem will arise if the directory is 
attempted to be moved. It is very annoying. As a partial work around, bash 
could be maybe modified to never "sit" in the current directory, but instead 
to hang out on the root of the drive, and only switch to the current 
directory when a command is run.

A similar problem (due to the same, or related, Windows "BUG") manifests 
itself if you try to overwrite an executable that has an instance of itself 
currently running. That is a very annoying "feature" as well.

Though I agree with you, it would be nice if mv said ahead of time that it 
could not do it and saved me the clean up hassles when it fails.

On Tuesday 02 April 2002 04:31, Xavier Bergade wrote:
> On windows XP & 2000:
> open 2 instances of cygwin
>
> instance 1:
>     mkdir /1 && echo "tst" > /1/tst && cd /1
>
> instance 2:
>     cd /
>     mv /1 /2
>
> Instead of returning an error, something like "/1" is in use, it copies /1
> to /2, THEN returns:
> mv: cannot remove directory `/1': Permission denied
> mv: cannot remove `/1': Permission denied
>
> Shouldn't it say something like:
> mv: cannot move `/1': Directory in use
>
> Regards,
>
> Xavier Bergade.

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