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Date:   Sun, 3 May 2020 21:51:22 -0400
From:   "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
To:     Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org>
Cc:     linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: /fs/ext4/namei.c ext4_find_dest_de()
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On Sun, May 03, 2020 at 02:00:25PM +0100, Jonny Grant wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I noticed that mkdir() returns EEXIST if a directory already exists.
> strerror(EEXIST) text is "File exists"
> 
> Can ext4_find_dest_de() be amended to return EISDIR if a directory already
> exists? This will make the error message clearer.

No; this will confuse potentially a large number of existing programs.
Also, the current behavior is required by POSIx and the Single Unix
Specification standards.

	https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/

Regards,

						- Ted