Getting rid of the only race condition that matters: Create the link first, with an unused name. Instead of relying on the return code, which may be wrong for NFS, call stat to find out if you created the file. Rename the link over top of the file it is intended to replace. In case that fails, remove the temporary file.
I suggest temporary names that look like these: .fdupes-vtYoH1PGPa4lj^LIOfL_i~ .fdupes-wz_7uNXC2R4-ftNq-gl,Z~ .fdupes-kf9_9EQmw-v0nv_-HcyKS~ .fdupes-BTR6AlGWjz@rVSC^+@j+-~ .fdupes--SaeXuxNfj1U0mltgmWNN~ (dotfile, string "fdupes", 128 random bits, tilde on end, and nothing that would be likely to trip up a bash shell) Note that you can't hope to support all the crazy things that exist in current and **future** kernels. There are numerous security modules, "mount --bind" tricks such as file-on-file mounting, union filesystems, network fs servers running on non-Linux systems, and so on. You have to draw the line somewhere; just make a note in the man page that the tool is intended for single-user use in non-crazy situations. Perfection is the enemy of good; we need this option working again. Right now I'm desperately rewriting this tool as a pile of nasty shell scripts, and I assure you that I totally don't care about cross-filesystem issues. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
