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#1 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 04:09 PM

Hi,

I have noticed that 'mkdir -p a/b/c/d' creates the missing directories
but returns '2' if either a, b, c or d exists beforehand (Unixware
7.1.1).

Is this expected behaviour on Unixware or has this changed in later
versions?

ciao
Klaus

#2 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 04:10 PM

Klaus Heinz wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have noticed that 'mkdir -p a/b/c/d' creates the missing
directories
> but returns '2' if either a, b, c or d exists beforehand (Unixware
> 7.1.1).
>
> Is this expected behaviour on Unixware or has this changed in later
> versions?

I don't know what is expected on Unixware but it sure doesn't work that
way on Linux or bsd

--
Tony Lawrence
http://aplawrence.com

#3 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 04:10 PM

> Klaus Heinz wrote:
> >
> > I have noticed that 'mkdir -p a/b/c/d' creates the missing
> directories
> > but returns '2' if either a, b, c or d exists beforehand (Unixware
> > 7.1.1).
> >
> > Is this expected behaviour on Unixware or has this changed in later
> > versions?

This was incorrect behavior.

mkdir -p of an existing directory correctly returns 0 on UW 7.1.4
(the current release). This fix was first made in UW 7.1.2
(aka Open UNIX 8).

Jonathan Schilling

#4 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 04:10 PM

Klaus Heinz wrote:

> I have noticed that 'mkdir -p a/b/c/d' creates the missing directories
> but returns '2' if either a, b, c or d exists beforehand (Unixware
> 7.1.1).
>
> Is this expected behaviour on Unixware or has this changed in later
> versions?

I tested this on UW714 and it returned 0:

$ cd /tmp
$ rm -rf a
$ mkdir -p a/b/c/d; echo $?
0
$ mkdir -p a/b/c/d; echo $?
0
$ rm -rf a
$ touch a
$ mkdir -p a/b/c/d; echo $?
UX:mkdir: ERROR: Cannot create directory "a/b/c/d": Not a directory
2

From the source, it appears that this changed some time between the
release of OpenUnix 8.0.0 (UW712) and the release of UnixWare 7.1.3.

>Bela<

#5 (**permalink**) 02-15-2008, 04:11 PM

Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com> wrote:

> From the source, it appears that this changed some time between the
> release of OpenUnix 8.0.0 (UW712) and the release of UnixWare 7.1.3.

Thanks for the answers.
Am I correct that this is not available as a patch (ptf?) for versions
< 7.1.3?

It seems I will have to test for "< 7.1.3" to determine whether my shell
replacement for 'mkdir' should be used.

ciao
Klaus

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UW7: strange return code of mkdir(1)