Perhaps the "Text file busy" error is Unix-specific, but I can imagine cases where somebody (other than the OS) might open a file with a well-known name and read from various parts of it, and expect it not to change underneath them...
Regards, Frederik On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 05:19:42PM +0300, Krasimir Angelov wrote: > Isn't this Unix specific bug? If that is the case then maybe unlinking > should be optional. > > Cheers, > Krasimir > > On 8/22/06, Frederik Eaton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Dear bug-coreutils, > > > >We are trying to decide what the semantics of the Haskell standard > >library function 'copyFile' should be. The first incarnation behaved > >roughly like 'cp', i.e. overwriting destination files without > >unlinking them first. This isn't suitable for installing stuff, for > >example, since if an executable is running and we try to overwrite it > >then there is a "Text file busy" error. We could change the semantics > >to be the same as 'cp --remove-destination', i.e. unlinking > >pre-existing destination files. > > > >The question is, is there a reason why users wouldn't always want a > >"copyFile" function to remove the destination first? If there is, then > >maybe we should have two separate functions, for both situations. The > >only drawback I can think of for removing the destination first, is a > >race condition when someone else is trying to create the same file, > >but how often does that actually become a problem? > > > >Thanks, > > > >Frederik > > > >-- > >http://ofb.net/~frederik/ > >_______________________________________________ > >Libraries mailing list > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries > > > -- http://ofb.net/~frederik/ _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
