[issue1577] shutil.move() does not use os.rename() if dst is a directory

[Guido van Rossum]

Guido van Rossum added the comment:

> Before tackling this, I'd like a precision on os.rename(src, dst)
> semantics. The documentation says "If dst is a directory, OSError will
> be raised". However, under Linux, if src is a directory and dst is an
> empty directory, dst is overwritten with src:
>
> $ mkdir src dst
> $ touch dst/t
> $ ./python -c "import os; os.rename('src', 'dst')"
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
> OSError: [Errno 39] Directory not empty
> $ rm dst/t
> $ ./python -c "import os; os.rename('src', 'dst')"
> $
>
> Is this a bug, a misfeature, or just an imprecision in the documentation?

To be honest, I wasn't aware of this behavior of the rename() system
call for directories on Unix. It is most certainly a feature (of the
system call) that should be maintained (for the system call wrapper).

shutil.move() should not mimic this though -- it should more closely
approximate the "mv" utility's behavior, which doesn't differentiate
between empty and non-empty destination directories, and always moves
*into* the target when it is a directory (and complains if the
resulting destination path already exists).

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Tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue1577>
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