Re: dired-do-rename on "." and ".."

[Luc Teirlinck]

I do not know whether the fact that the pre-change behavior of R and
friends is actually the only logical one, is still at issue.  If it
still is, let me try to explain it somewhat more intuitively.  Imagine
one window displaying dired buffer ~/a and one window displaying ~/b.
Assume both ~/a and ~/b contain different files with the same name
"README".  If we put the cursor on README in ~/a and do R specifying
~/b as target directory, and the command succeeds, we have overridden
b's README with a's.  If we do the same with the file named "." in a's
buffer, which actually is ~/a itself, we override the file named "."
in b's buffer, which represents ~/b.  Hence, we rename ~/a to ~/b (if
we succeed, that is, if ~/b is empty).  Why should "." behave
differently from "README"?

Sincerely,

Luc.