Re: [PATCH v3] Add an option not to use link(src, dest) && unlink(src) when that is unreliable

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Apr 27, 2009, 16:53 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0904270952040.22156@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0904271800360.7741@intel-tinevez-2-302>

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> 
> > The thing is, maybe people would prefer to use 'rename' over the 
> > link/unlink games even on some unixes, and not because of 'reliability' 
> > issues, but because they may have some filesystems that don't do 
> > hardlinks, and they'd just rather speed things up by avoiding the 'link()' 
> > system call that will just error out.
> 
> We already fall back to renaming when another error than EEXIST is 
> returned from link(), so I think this case is covered.

You didn't read what I wrote.

  "they'd just rather speed things up by avoiding the 'link()' system call 
   that will just error out."

I know we fall back to rename(). The point is that if you know link doesn't work, why not just skip it?

		Linus