php rename is copying instead of moving

Question

I have the following code:

rename ('/original_dir/file','/new_dir/file');

When the code is run, I get the following message:

Warning: rename(/original_dir/file,/new_dir/file): Operation not permitted

The file is however copied to /newdir, but is not removed from /original_dir

I am using rename to have it moved, not copied.

Both /original_dir and /new_dir have permissions set to 0777

This should work. Any ideas?

i must have missed the part of your post that mentions anything about a `device` ... my bad. g'luck — YvesLeBorg, Nov 18 '14 at 23:26

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

1

Have you tried a copy() and a unlink()? It may give you a better look at what goes wrong.

if( copy('/original_dir/file', '/new_dir/file') ) {
unlink('/original_dir/file');
}

source

Edits: if the script is being called from the command line, does it work with sudo? If it is being called from a webpage, does it work if you change the owner of the file to apache? Did you get the exact error code and check it in man 2 rename per this comment?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

Community

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answered Nov 18 '14 at 23:21

Sam H.

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I've already tried that and it actually works, but rename is not working. This is pretty puzzling. – EastsideDev Nov 19 '14 at 01:05
Does using sudo (if from CL) or CHOWNing the file to apache (if from web) work? – Sam H. Nov 19 '14 at 18:21

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 19 '14 at 00:09

Rename is actually moving file with another name. As you can see from error, that operation is not permitted because, even though you have permission to write to file, you cannot delete the file if you are not owner of it on many Linux distributions. That's why your web server process is copying file, and not able to delete the old one.

php rename is copying instead of moving

2 Answers2