mv -f reliability

rtaft · 01-07-2004, 12:36 PM

Say I have file ~/temp/a.txt and a file ~/final/a.txt and I overwrite the latter with the former by saying
mv -f ~/temp/a.txt ~/final/a.txt
Can i say with 100% certainty that when I read ~/final/a.txt it will always exists? Even during that nanno second that the move is doing it's thing?

Is there a C function that does the same thing with the same certainty?

dubman · 01-07-2004, 12:46 PM

i would think it would depend to the size of the file. But you could test it out. Write one script that is looping the move statement. Then write a second script that is looping some sort of access statement. Let the two scripts run simultaneously and see if you ever get a "file does not exist" error.