rsync - Oct 2022 - Fwd: [3.1.3] --remove-source-files $SRC/ $SRC/ - erases all files

I think I must be missing something.  If source and dest are the same 
place rsync shouldn't do anything unless it it responding to changes 
happening at the same time.  For example, when I do 'rsync -vain 
--remove-source-files /tmp/ /tmp/' rsync does nothing.

On 10/17/22 23:12, Sridhar Sarnobat via rsync wrote:
>  >> why not avoid using "--remove-source-files" and delete
files
> manually/via extra step afterwards
> 
> Multiple reasons. Among them:
> 1) my jobs run a long time and there are a lot of them. Trying to 
> remember what I did over ssh (where history doesn't get saved) is an 
> extra cognitive load and the system is in a transient state (I've ended
> up with duplicate files unless I do the extra work later - potentially 
> much later depending on the size of the job). I may also have multiple 
> rsync commands running in separate terminals.
> 2) I am managing a lot of large files, and my collection of disks 
> doesn't have 2x free space.
> 3) 2 operations instead of 1 gives more room to make a mistake.
> 
> This is a workaround that I can occasionally use, and you could even say 
> "why not just use ext4magic?" to recover accidentally deleted
files etc.
> 
> Regardless, the semantics of deleting source files without leaving one 
> copy of your files intact should never happen right?
> 
> 
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>
> I think I must be missing something.  If source and dest are the same
> place rsync shouldn't do anything unless it it responding to changes
> happening at the same time.  For example, when I do 'rsync -vain
> --remove-source-files /tmp/ /tmp/' rsync does nothing.
>
Thanks for the response. You are using "-n" /
"--no-clobber".

In my case I'm using "-b" / "--backup" (or overwrite).
My use case is to
get everything out of the source location, and "--no-clobber" will
leave
things behind. So I guess I should refine my issue to "when you're not
using --no-clobber."

Do I have a case here? Or is this erasing both the source and destination a
valid behaviour in my case?
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