[TUHS] moving directories in svr2

[arnold at skeeve.com]

System V of that era didn't allow moving directories. You can copy them
recursively with find and cpio with the option that makes hard links
and then remove the old directory, or use a standard tar pipeline to
copy the directory tree.

BSD has always allowed moving directories; I *think* that descends
from Research Unix but I don't remember for sure.

HTH,

Arnold

Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm a little flummoxed in trying to move some directories around in 
> svr2. Shouldn't the following work?
>
>      mkdir a
>      mkdir b
>      mv a b
>
> I get the following error:
> mv: b exists
>
> I tried many of the possible variants including:
>
>     mv a b/
>     mv: b/ exists
>     mv a b/a
>     mv: directory rename only
>     cd b
>     mv ../a .
>     mv: . exists
>     mv ../a ./
>     mv: ./ exists
>     mv ../a ./a
>     mv: directory rename only
>
>
> If moving directories into existing directories wasn't allowed in those 
> days, 1) how were directories managed? and 2) when did moving 
> directories into directories become a thing?
>