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Odd wording it docs for shutil.move?

Rhodri James rhodri at kynesim.co.uk
Fri Mar 3 12:27:29 EST 2017 
On 03/03/17 17:22, Chris Warrick wrote:
> On 3 March 2017 at 18:13, Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards at gmail.com> wrote:
>> At https://docs.python.org/2/library/shutil.html it says:
>>
>>  shutil.move(src, dst)
>>
>>     Recursively move a file or directory (src) to another location
>>     (dst).
>>
>>     [...]
>>
>>     If the destination is on the current filesystem, then os.rename()
>>     is used. Otherwise, src is copied (using shutil.copy2()) to dst
>>     and then removed.
>>
>> What does the current filesystem have to do with anything?
>>
>> Surely, what matters is whether <src> and <dst> are on the same
>> filesystem?
>
> For the same reason it matters for /bin/mv. If the source and target
> are on the same filesystem, the files are just renamed, which is
> usually instantaneous (only file metadata needs to be changed). But if
> they are on different filesystems, “move” really means “copy and
> delete original”, which takes much longer.

Exactly Grant's point.  The shutil.move documentation talks about the 
*current* filesystem, not the filesystem on which <src> is located.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd
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