Re: coreutils 5.97: Adjust mkdir message (File exists)

[Micah Cowan]

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Jari Aalto wrote:
>> Thanks, but "File exists" is just the English version of the
>> strerror(EEXIST) string from the C library.
> 
> "Target exists" would be more generic if message is based on the EEXIST
> error code.

Considering that, as Jim points out just below, directories and symlinks
are also files, how would "target" be any better? "File" is quite
generic enough, without being as vague in meaning as "target" is (and I
thought you were arguing for more specificity?)

(Jim:)
>> For one thing, in discussing file system objects, "file" is often
>> used to refer to a generic object, be it symlink, block device,
>> regular file, directory, etc.

...

>> I'm inclined to say no, but there is precedent for examining the file
>> type.  The prompt you see when using rm's -i tells you about the type
>> of the file it might remove.

Sure; but then, it's asking whether you want to destroy something; the
more information about what you're potentially obliterating, the better.

In this case, mkdir's telling you it can't create a directory because
something else is already there. Does it really matter what specific
thing is there? Perhaps it's a directory, perhaps it's a file; it
doesn't really matter, because regardless of what it is, you're not
going to clobber it with a directory. Perhaps, in addition to performing
an lstat(), mkdir should go ahead and ls -lR it (if it's a directory),
or page it for you (if it's a text file), so you can make the
most-informed decision as to whether to remove it and try again. :)

At any rate, I suspect the realm into which this suggestion falls was
probably clarified, once it was accompanied with the suggestion that
mkdir generate a logfile.

Given that there's no historical precedent for it, the message is
accurate as it stands, and no one has established what benefit a change
could provide, it seems to me that the burden of proof is a long way
from being met.

- --
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer...
http://micah.cowan.name/
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