Error out when target path does not exist

[josch]

Hi,

it sometimes happens that after I insert a SD-card, my OS fails to recognize it with some error in dmesg. When that happens there is of course no corresponding device created in /dev. But bmaptool will happily copy to a non-existing output path, just creating it and filling up my /dev.

I wonder: does there exist a legitimate use-case for bmaptool where the target path does not exist? Because if not, should bmaptool not just error out if the target path doesn't exist? Should it maybe also error out if the target path exists but is not a block device? Both of these defaults would have corresponding --force flags to even support unusual setups.

But would it make sense for bmaptool to error out when the output path does not exist?