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`git mv` has ambiguous error message for non-existing target

From
PLPatrick Lehner <lehner.patrick@gmx.de>
Date
Nov 15, 2012, 18:54 UTC
Message-ID
<50A53A80.4080203@gmx.de>
Hey guys,

as was brought up on #github today, the "git mv" command has a bit of a little-helping output message when the target directory (or any intermediate directories) dont exist.

To reproduce:
- cd into a git repo
- assuming "filea.txt" is an existing file in the CWD, and "dirb" is 
neither a file nor a directory in the CWD, use the command "git mv 
filea.txt dirb/filea.txt"
- this will produce an error message like `fatal: renaming 'filea.sh' 
failed: No such file or directory`

It does not mention that the problem is, in fact, the target directory not existing. This seems to be mostly a problem for users unfamiliar with bash/*nix console commands. Although it is documented that git mv will not create intermediate folders (which is fine, because neither does mv), the error message might lead to believe a problem exists with the source file.

Expanding the error message to "No such file or directory: 'dirb/' " would probably clear this up.

Best regards and thanks to anyone who could improve this, Patrick

Next: Junio C Hamano
Message 1 of 5 in “`git mv` has ambiguous error message for non-existing target”
  1. Patrick LehnerNov 15, 2012
  2. Junio C HamanoNov 16, 2012
  3. Patrick LehnerNov 16, 2012
  4. Junio C HamanoNov 17, 2012
  5. Patrick LehnerNov 19, 2012

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