Re: Changing file & directory names

FROM : John Stiles
DATE : Sat Jul 01 22:13:43 2006

Sherm Pendley wrote:
> On Jul 1, 2006, at 3:18 PM, John Stiles wrote:
>

>> Sherm Pendley wrote:

>>> On Jul 1, 2006, at 1:41 PM, Dean Snyder wrote:
>>>

>>>> Greg Titus wrote at 10:26 AM on Saturday, July 1, 2006:
>>>>

>>>>> [[NSFileManager defaultManager] movePath:src toPath:dest
>>>>> handler:handler];
>>>>> Hope this helps!

>>>>

>>>>> From Apple documentation for NSFileManager movePath:

>>>>
>>>> "If source is a file, the method creates a file at destination that
>>>> holds the exact contents of the original file and then deletes the
>>>> original file. If source is a directory, movePath:toPath:handler:
>>>> creates a new directory at destination and recursively populates it
>>>> with
>>>> duplicates of the files and directories contained in source."
>>>>
>>>> This is really heavyweight

>>>
>>> No, it's not heavy at all - you've just misunderstood what it does.
>>> When the above says "creates a file at destination", it's talking
>>> about creating a new directory entry that points to the same data,
>>> not about copying the data.

>> I don't see any way that you could read this entry without
>> interpreting it as "directories are copied element-by-element."
>> There's no ambiguity at all.

>
> It's done that way because link() cannot create a hard link to a
> directory. Even so, once the new directory is created, link() followed
> by unlink() are used to move files into it.
>

If that is the case, then clearly the documentation is incorrect.
"Recursively populates it with /duplicates/ of the files" is clear as
day. Hard links are not duplicates. There's vague, there's misleading
and then there's just plain wrong---and I think we've gotten to the
third category with this one.