Hello,
If you try to rename a file with the -n flag while keeping the same name, mv
reports that no replacement occurred in GNU/Linux, while mv reports nothing
in GNU/Hurd:
user@user:~$ > file
user@user:~$ stat file
File: file
Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 regular empty
file
Device: 259,2 Inode: 10131664 Links: 1
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 1000/ user) Gid: ( 1000/ user)
Access: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Modify: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Change: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Birth: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
user@user:~$
user@user:~$ mv -n file file
mv: not replacing 'file'
user@user:~$ stat file
File: file
Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 4096 regular empty
file
Device: 259,2 Inode: 10131664 Links: 1
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 1000/ user) Gid: ( 1000/ user)
Access: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Modify: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Change: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
Birth: 2026-09-08 10:58:30.443730136 +0700
demo@debian:~$ > file
demo@debian:~$ stat file
File: file
Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 8192 regular empty
file
Device: 0,8 Inode: 139592 Links: 1
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 1000/ demo) Gid: ( 1000/ demo)
Access: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Modify: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Change: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Birth: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
demo@debian:~$
demo@debian:~$ mv -n file file
demo@debian:~$ stat file
File: file
Size: 0 Blocks: 0 IO Block: 8192 regular empty
file
Device: 0,8 Inode: 139592 Links: 1
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 1000/ demo) Gid: ( 1000/ demo)
Access: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Modify: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Change: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Birth: 2026-09-08 05:00:28.000000000 +0100
Since the file's stat doesn't change, I assume mv isn't performing any
manipulations on the file and simply doesn't report that no replacement
occurred. As far as I can tell, this is because the copy_internal function
from coreutils/src/copy.c handles this error differently.
Is this behavior desirable?
Thanks,
--
Mikhail Karpov
