Re: RFC: O_PONIES semantics (well O_REWRITE)

[Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>]

On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 03:07:38AM +0100, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> > Some of the common failures are:
> > - program overwrites the old config file
> > - program writes a new file, but forgets to fsync before rename
> > - program writes the new file in /tmp, so the rename fails on
> >   some systems
> > - program writes a new file and fsyncs, but forgets to give the
> >   new file the same file ownership, permission and/or extended
> >   attributes as the old file
> 
> It's also really hard to do those things from shell scripts, so they
> are almost never done there.

That's a good point, but O_(PONIES|REWRITE) doesn't fix that problem,
since shell scripts can't specify it, and shells can't do it automatically
for all files created.

-- 
Matthew Wilcox				Intel Open Source Technology Centre
"Bill, look, we understand that you're interested in selling us this
operating system, but compare it to ours.  We can't possibly take such
a retrograde step."