🚀 go-pugleaf

mib@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes:

| Deciding what mv should do when the system call's semantics have
| changed is something that can be addressed on this list.  There will
| generally be two kinds of combination directory/files in the Hurd.
| The first is typified by transparent tar, in which the file is a tar
| archive and the directory is its contents.  The second is loosely
| called a "shadow", in which the directory is the union of some other
| directories, and the file is a description of the nature of this
| union.

| For the first, the directory semantics are incidental, and should not
| be relevant to the behavior of mv.  It was such a directory I had in
| mind when I said that "mv bar foo" and "mv bar foo/" should have
| different results.  For the second, the file semantics are incidental,
| and the directory rules should apply.  

I'm not following this - don't see why mv should care whether directory
semantics are "incidental".  When we go to the trouble of providing
directory semantics, it seems confusing to have them apply in some cases
and not in others.  It seems ironic that the example is called "transparent"
tar - perhaps "translucent" would be better, if the intent is to have it
look like a directory but require the user to know the difference.

	Donn Cave, University Computing Services, University of Washington
	donn@cac.washington.edu