Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!dcs!wnp
From: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Unix-like mv commands
Keywords: Some aren't so like
Message-ID: <125@dcs.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jun 88 14:16:03 GMT
References: <28547@clyde.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Organization: DCS, Dallas, Texas
Lines: 52

In article <28547@clyde.ATT.COM> feg@clyde.ATT.COM (Forrest Gehrke) writes:
>There have been several rebuttals on the net and via email
>to my posting that the picnix mv command is not
>like Unix.  They all told me what I now know: 
>If the syntax is given like this:
>
>   mv filename \gooddir\bogusdir\anyfilename
>
>this command will indeed report it cannot create bogusdir.
>
>But if the syntax is like this:
>
>   mv filename \gooddir\bogusdir\
>
>then this command will treat bogusdir as the new name 
>for the file and move it under gooddir, ignoring the backlash,
>oblivious that bogusdir was given as a DIRECTORY name.

I just tried this on my System V UNIX:

  $ touch test
  $ ls bogusdir
  bogusdir not found
  $ mv test bogusdir/
  $ ls -l bogusdir
  -rw-r--r--   1 wnp      user           0 Jun 25 09:06 bogusdir
  $

Thus the PICNIX mv command seems to behave just like UNIX System V.
The problem here seems to be the assumption that there is something
called "UNIX" which is clearly defined. 

Well, I personally have worked on at least three different flavors of
UNIX, and THEY ALL BEHAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENTLY!

The PICNIX documentation makes it very clear that the commands are 
designed to be largely System V compatible, and in the case of mv that
seems to be the case.

I had noticed that unlike real System V, the MKS toolkit commands 
do not tolerate trailing backslashes on directory names, and I hope 
someone at MKS reads this and gets it fixed (Gerry, Trevor, are you out
there?).

Anyway, folks, when you complain that such and such a command is not
like UNIX, tell us WHICH UNIX you are referring to. That could save us
a lot of unnecessary discussion. And check the docs, to see what
they claim, before complaining.
-- 
Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101
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