On 04/05/2020 02:51, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:
On Sun, May 03, 2020 at 02:00:25PM +0100, Jonny Grant wrote:
Hi
I noticed that mkdir() returns EEXIST if a directory already exists.
strerror(EEXIST) text is "File exists"
Can ext4_find_dest_de() be amended to return EISDIR if a directory already
exists? This will make the error message clearer.
No; this will confuse potentially a large number of existing programs.
Also, the current behavior is required by POSIx and the Single Unix
Specification standards.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/
Regards,
- Ted
Hi,
Is it likely POSIX would introduce this change? It's a shame we're still
constrained by old standards (SVr4, BSD), but it's fine if they can be
updated.
As developer, I can see it feels more confusing for users as it is.
This issue shows up in various programs.
$ mkdir test
$ mkdir test
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘test’: File exists
I would expect it to be clear for users:
$ mkdir test
$ mkdir test
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘test’: Is a directory
The 'mkdir' team don't want to add a call to stat() to give a more
appropriate error message.
Cheers, Jonny
