2016-11-07 15:40:15 +0000, Geoff Clare:
[...]
> > Same problem with "mv" (which I think would work just
> > as well (with LC_ALL=C mv -i < /dev/null 2> /dev/null))
>
> No, mv -i doesn't work just as well - it has a race condition.
> If a file is created in between the existence check and the
> rename() call, mv will remove the file.
How so? "mv -i" with /dev/null as stdin ("no" answer to prompt)
is not supposed to remove anything.
> > You could use "link" (Unix, not POSIX), or "ln -T" (GNU, not
> > POSIX) or "mv -Tn" (GNU) instead.
>
> The standard allows systems to make "link" available only to
> processes with appropriate privileges, so that solution might
> not be sufficiently portable.
[...]
That seems to be in contradiction with it calling the link()
system call.
I suspect that text is there for attempts to call "link" on a
directory.
