On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 05:17:34PM -0800, Omar Sandoval wrote: > > No. This is completely wrong; just make it ->link_replace() and be done > > with that; no extra arguments and *always* the same conditions wrt > > positive/negative. One of the reasons why ->rename() tends to be > > ugly (and a source of quite a few bugs over years) are those "if > > target is positive/if target is negative" scattered over the instances. > > > > Make the choice conditional upon the positivity of target. > > Yup, you already convinced me that ->link_replace() is better in your > last email. FWIW, that might be not so simple ;-/ Reason: NFS-like stuff. Client sees a negative in cache; the problem is how to decide whether to tell the server "OK, I want normal link()" vs. "if it turns out that someone has created it by the time you see the request, give do a replacing link". Sure, if could treat ->link() telling you -EEXIST as "OK, repeat it with ->link_replace(), then", but that's an extra roundtrip... Hell knows... I would really like to avoid any kind of ->atomic_open() redux ;-/
