SUSv3 says (under rename Rationale):
The specification that if old and new refer to the same file is intended to guarantee that:

rename("x", "x");

does not remove the file.

Seems a little lame to me (the given rationale, not necessarily the behaviour).

All of the special handling for when the new file already exists is a POSIX extension of the ISO C standard.

In reply to Re: [OT] rename(2) -- renaming file to itself produces no error. by ysth
in thread [OT] rename(2) -- renaming file to itself produces no error. by dmitri

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