Sign Up

Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.

Have an account? Sign In

Have an account? Sign In Now

Sign In

Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.

Sign Up Here

Forgot Password?

Don't have account, Sign Up Here

Forgot Password

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

Have an account? Sign In Now

You must login to ask a question.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.

Sign InSign Up

The Archive Base

The Archive Base Logo The Archive Base Logo

The Archive Base Navigation

  • SEARCH
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
Search
Ask A Question

Mobile menu

Close
Ask a Question
  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Feed
  • User Profile
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Buy Points
  • Users
  • Help
  • Buy Theme
  • SEARCH
Home/ Questions/Q 3795920
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Editorial Team
Asked: May 19, 20262026-05-19T13:09:24+00:00 2026-05-19T13:09:24+00:00

When I type mv ../* . mv: cannot move ‘../<dir name>’ to a subdirectory

  • 0

When I type

mv ../* . 
mv: cannot move '../<dir name>' to a subdirectory of itself, './<dir name>'

How does the shell/mv command detect this behaviour?

  • 1 1 Answer
  • 0 Views
  • 0 Followers
  • 0
Share
  • Facebook
  • Report

Leave an answer
Cancel reply

You must login to add an answer.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

1 Answer

  • Voted
  • Oldest
  • Recent
  • Random
  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-05-19T13:09:25+00:00Added an answer on May 19, 2026 at 1:09 pm

    As far as I know, mv uses the rename() POSIX syscall, for which the specification says:

    The rename() function shall fail if:

    (…)

    [EINVAL] [CX] The new directory
    pathname contains a path prefix that
    names the old directory.

    … along with a myriad of other detailed failure modes.

    The operating system presumably implements the detection at the general VFS layer by comparing the inode numbers of the intermediate directories along the hierarchy.

    • 0
    • Reply
    • Share
      Share
      • Share on Facebook
      • Share on Twitter
      • Share on LinkedIn
      • Share on WhatsApp
      • Report

Sidebar

Related Questions

Can someone please explain why I'm getting this error Type mismatch: cannot convert from
Given this code: List<Integer> ints = new ArrayList<Integer>(); // Type mismatch: // cannot convert
I encountered this error: Cannot implicitly convert type System.Web.UI.WebControls.LoginView to Login The error occured
This code gives me this error:Cannot implicitly convert type ArrayList[] to ArrayList[][] at this
I am getting src-resolve: Cannot resolve the name 'j2ee:descriptionType' to a(n) 'type definition' component.
I know for a matter of fact that Type cannot be used when passing
If ObjectAlloc cannot deduce type information for the block, it uses 'GeneralBlock'. Any strategies
I am using System.Reflection to load a type that I cannot otherwise load during
The following code throws an compile-time error like Cannot convert type 'string' to 'int'
I cannot initialize a non-const reference to type T1 from a convertible type T2.

Explore

  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Users
  • Help
  • SEARCH

Footer

© 2021 The Archive Base. All Rights Reserved
With Love by The Archive Base

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

    No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.