Re: [PATCH shepherd] support: Ignore errors on parent directories in mkdir-p.

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

David Michael <fedora.dm0@gmail.com> skribis:

> On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

[...]

>> I think that it’s a case where it would be beneficial for the Hurd to
>> follow what Linux does, which is to return EEXIST.
>>
>> How does Coreutils’ ‘mkdir -p’ behave in this situation?  (I’ve looked
>> at mkdir-p.c in Gnulib but it’s a bit complicated…)
>
> After a quick glance it basically looks like after any error occurs
> from a mkdir call, it tests if the path exists and is a directory, and
> if so, proceeds ignoring that mkdir error.  If mkdir fails and the
> directory doesn't exist afterwards, then the mkdir-p call fails with
> that error.
>
> That sounds like the best option to me: keeping mkdir-p independent of
> the mkdir implementation, while preserving the error from the first
> real problem it encounters.  I'll send a patch with that change
> instead.

OK, makes sense, though it incurs an additional ‘stat’ call.

> If you'd still prefer to change the Hurd behavior, we could copy the
> bug-hurd list to discuss, since I'm not sure if such a change will
> have unintended consequences elsewhere.

I think we should do both: submit the Hurd change, which I think is a
good thing in the long run, and work around the problem here.

Ludo’.