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Re: not wanting to delete somebody's home directory



On 2019-07-05 at 12:56, Greg Wooledge wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 05, 2019 at 12:16:46PM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> And what if some of the destination names already exist? That's
>> the point of deleting the existing files, I'd imagine.
> 
> You're assuming too much.
> 
> Given the communication we've seen thus far, the most likely scenario
> is "I have a code snippet that will rename all the files in a
> directory, so now I just have to wipe out the directory first, then
> make the files, then use this code snippet to rename them all."

Given that I can't just offhand think of a single reason why doing this
would be desirable, I do not at all consider this even *a* likely
scenario, much less the most likely one.

(I'll probably think of one as soon as I've sent this mail, never mind
by the time anyone replies to it, but c'est la vie.)

> If the desired destination files already exist, the only sane thing
> to do is abort with an error message, unless the user used a force
> option.

Isn't that basically what I suggested in the first place, modulo some
uncertainty about the knowability of what those names will need to be?

-- 
   The Wanderer

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.         -- George Bernard Shaw

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