Subject: Re: [Outreachy][PATCH] abspath: reconcile `dir_exists()` and `is_directory()`

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 11:45:56 +0900

SZEDER Gábor <[email-masked]> writes:

> The first callsite is:
>
>     dest_exists = dir_exists(dir);
>     if (dest_exists && !is_empty_dir(dir))
>             die(_("destination path '%s' already exists and is not "
>                     "an empty directory."), dir);

Yup.  The primary/original reason why the helper exists is to see if
we can create directory there, so the function is asking "is this
path taken?"  It might have been cleaner to do all of these without
using such a helper function and instead take the safer approach to
"try mkdir, and if we fail, complian", which is race-free.  But the
above is what we have now X-<.