Issue 19840: shutil.move(): Add ability to use custom copy function to allow to ignore metadata

shutil.move sometimes fail when the underlining filesystem has limitations.

Here is a part of a stacktrace I'm getting :

  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/shutil.py", line 534, in move
    copy2(src, real_dst)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/shutil.py", line 244, in copy2
    copystat(src, dst, follow_symlinks=follow_symlinks)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.3/shutil.py", line 192, in copystat
    lookup("chmod")(dst, mode, follow_symlinks=follow)
OSError: [Errno 38]

This behaviour is expected because shutil.move uses shutil.copy2 under the hood to copy file data and metadata.

However there is no way to tell shutil.move to use shutil.copy and to ignore metadata.

Maybe a new copy_metadata parameter (defaulting to True) or copy_function (like in shutil.copytree) would be an elegant solution?

Note that the equivalent linux command generates a warning message but does the move anyway.  In other words, this seems like a very reasonable request ;)

Hi. Here's a patch which adds `copy_function` parameter to `shutil.move`.

Any type of feedback will be appreciated.

Review comments added.  Patch looks good after the doc fixes.  We also need a whatsnew entry.

Thanks, David. The new version of the patch is attached.

New changeset 0d61a2a50f9f by R David Murray in branch 'default':
#19840: Add copy_function to shutil.move.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0d61a2a50f9f

Thanks, Claudiu.

stage: resolved

messages: + msg220170