On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 10:35 PM, Antoine Pitrou <report@bugs.python.org>wrote:

> > os.rename(overwrite=False) by default will do less harm than the
> opposite,
>
> Disagreed.
>

Fine. No arguments == no consensus.

> > Then I believe that having a small chance of overwriting file just
> created
> > at exactly the same moment on a POSIX is a small price to pay for
> function
> > that does safety check before rename on a platform that doesn't have such
> > functionality at all.
>
> Disagreed.
> If you need the functionality, it's *one* additional line of code. Not
> every trivial function deserves to be in the stdlib.

As a Windows programmer I am quite surprised to read this thread with
information that on Linux os.rename() overwrites files without questions,
so as I Windows programmer I want os.rename() to stop that. I always guard
my code against accidental rewrite by catching the exception. EAFP and all
that stuff. But there is no way I can ask forgiveness when files are
already overwritten.