Re: mv yy/c zz/c /somedir

[Jim Meyering]

Dan Jacobson <address@hidden> wrote:
> Fellas, should we feel bad about
> $ mv yy/c zz/c /somedir

Yes.

> yes, the usual alias mv=mv -i will protect the general user, and I
> suppose for scripts the user is supposed to know better...
>
> so i suppose no child-guard protection cap is needed, however maybe
> mention this hazard on the info page.
>
> this probably would occur with typings like
> $ mv */*c* /somedir

Thanks for reporting that.
I think I have found a way to make GNU mv fail in that case --
with minimal performance impact.

cp should at least warn, too, in case someone does `cp some... files... dir'
and then upon successful completion runs `rm -rf some... files...'.

BTW, if you use mv's --backup=numbered option when running
that command, you wouldn't lose any data.