[PATCH] mv: report missing destination leading directory

From: Lucas Zamboni Orioli via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 15, 2026, 14:32 UTC
Message-ID: <pull.2356.git.git.1784125963694.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

From: Lucas Zamboni Orioli <lucaszam0@gmail.com>

When moving a file to a destination whose leading directory does not exist, "git mv" fails at the rename(2) syscall with ENOENT. Because the error is reported via die_errno() using only the source path:

    fatal: renaming 'src' failed: No such file or directory

the message misleadingly blames the source, even though it is the destination's parent directory that is missing. A user who runs

    git mv a/file b/does-not-exist/file

is told the problem is with 'a/file', which exists, giving no hint that 'b/does-not-exist/' needs to be created first.

The checking phase already rejects a missing destination directory when the destination ends in a slash, but a destination that names a file inside a non-existent directory is not caught and only fails later at rename(2). As a result "git mv -n" also fails to detect the problem, since the dry run never reaches the syscall and reports a move that would not actually succeed.

Detect this during the checking phase instead: for entries that will be renamed on disk, stat the destination's leading directory and, if it is missing, fail with the existing "destination directory does not exist" message. Guard the check with the same condition under which rename(2) is invoked so that directory moves, whose child entries are expanded to paths under a not-yet-created directory, and sparse or out-of-cone destinations, which are not written to the worktree, are not flagged incorrectly.

This gives a clear message and lets "git mv -n" report the failure.

Signed-off-by: Lucas Zamboni Orioli <lucaszam0@gmail.com>
---
    mv: report missing destination leading directory

Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-2356%2FZamboniL%2Fmv-detect-non-existing-target-folder-v1
Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-2356/ZamboniL/mv-detect-non-existing-target-folder-v1
Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/2356

 builtin/mv.c  | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 t/t7001-mv.sh | 14 ++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 35 insertions(+)

diff --git a/builtin/mv.c b/builtin/mv.c
index e03823370c..a95531f0b2 100644
--- a/builtin/mv.c
+++ b/builtin/mv.c
@@ -444,6 +444,27 @@ dir_check:
 			goto act_on_entry;
 		}
 
+		/*
+		* If we are going to move SRC to DST on disk, DST's leading
+		* directories must already exist.
+		*/
+		if (!(modes[i] & (INDEX | SPARSE | SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR)) &&
+				!(dst_mode & (SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR | SPARSE))) {
+				char *dst_dir = xstrdup(dst);
+				char *slash = strrchr(dst_dir, '/');
+
+				if (slash) {
+						struct stat dir_st;
+						*slash = '\0';
+						if (lstat(dst_dir, &dir_st) < 0 && errno == ENOENT) {
+								free(dst_dir);
+								bad = _("destination directory does not exist");
+								goto act_on_entry;
+						}
+				}
+				free(dst_dir);
+		}
+
 		if (ignore_sparse &&
 		    (dst_mode & (SKIP_WORKTREE_DIR | SPARSE)) &&
 		    index_entry_exists(the_repository->index, dst, strlen(dst))) {
diff --git a/t/t7001-mv.sh b/t/t7001-mv.sh
index 920479e925..8a45997b33 100755
--- a/t/t7001-mv.sh
+++ b/t/t7001-mv.sh
@@ -114,6 +114,20 @@ test_expect_success 'clean up' '
 	git reset --hard
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'moving to non-existent destination parent directory' '
+	git reset --hard &&
+	mkdir -p from &&
+	echo content >from/file &&
+	git add from/file &&
+	test_must_fail git mv from/file no-such-dir/file 2>actual &&
+	test_grep "destination directory does not exist" actual
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'mv --dry-run detects non-existent destination parent directory' '
+	test_must_fail git mv -n from/file no-such-dir/file 2>actual &&
+	test_grep "destination directory does not exist" actual
+'
+
 test_expect_success 'moving to existing untracked target with trailing slash' '
 	mkdir path1 &&
 	git mv path0/ path1/ &&

base-commit: 55526a18268bbc1ddaf8a6b7850c33d984eac9e9

-- 
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