cp - Command-line tool to copy a file
21
votes
5answers
6k views
How can I move files and view the progress (e.g. with a progress bar)?
When moving large directories using mv, is there a way to view the progress (%)?
The cp command on gentoo had a -g switch that showed the progress.
19
votes
3answers
5k views
Difference Between cp -r and cp -R (copy command)
cp- r is meant to copy files recursively, and cp -R for copying directories recursively. But I've checked, and both appear to copy both files and directories, the same thing. So, what's the difference ...
19
votes
3answers
14k views
15
votes
2answers
5k views
Why doesn't cp have a progress bar like wget?
Please note that I don't ask how. I already know options like pv and rsync -P.
I want to ask why doesn't cp implement a progress bar, at least as a flag ?
15
votes
3answers
2k views
Why unix mv program doesn't need -R (recursive) option for directories but cp does need it?
This is a kind of "wtf?" question, so I'm sorry if I will disturb someone's vision of how things should be or if I will just annoy you with the "stupid" question.
I always get messed up when need to ...
13
votes
3answers
368 views
Is it possible to see cp speed and % copied?
I'm having problems when copy large files using nautilus (it gets stuck) so I need to copy using cp. I would like to know if there is any parameter that shows the % copied and also the transfer ...
9
votes
3answers
694 views
How does “cp” handle open files?
I'm having two separate directories. The user loads a file into the first. Theres a cronjob running in the background which copies the files every 5 minutes over to the second directory.
What happens ...
9
votes
4answers
1k views
Copying a single file to multiple directories using cp
This question is a sequel of sorts to my earlier question, Creating numerous directories using mkdir.
I am using the bash shell. I have created fifty directories, each starting with the prefix "s", ...
9
votes
6answers
309 views
How to copy every 4th file in a folder
I have a lot of files in a folder, named like 00802_Bla_Aquarium_XXXXX.jpg. Now I need to copy every 4th file to a subfolder, saying in selected/.
00802_Bla_Aquarium_00020.jpg <= this one
...
8
votes
3answers
4k views
copy recursively except hidden directory
How do I copy recursively like cp -rf *, but excluding hidden directories (directories starting with .) and their contents?
8
votes
3answers
373 views
Flattening a nested directory
This is probably very simple, but I can't figure it out. I have a directory structure like this (dir2 is inside dir1):
/dir1
/dir2
|
--- file1
|
--- file2
What is ...
7
votes
2answers
252 views
Why do `cp` and `rm` treat directories separately?
Why do tools like cp and rm treat directories separately from regular files? They both require the user to explicitly specify she wants a recursive behavior, or else they won't deal with directories ...
7
votes
1answer
133 views
Strange behaviour in recursive copy
Could someone explain why this happens?
Most specifically:
Why is one 1's content copied to f?
And why is f copied to g?
$ tree
.
0 directories, 0 files
$ mkdir 1
$ mkdir 2
$ touch 1/a
$ touch ...
6
votes
1answer
41 views
Is there a way to express: `--link` or fall back to ordinary copy in cp (from GNU coreutils)?
Is there a way to tell cp to --link (i.e. create hard links), but fall back in the case where I am attempting inter-device hardlinks? Inter-device links aren't possible and would cause cp to fail.
...
5
votes
5answers
2k views
How to copy all html files from a directory tree to a single directory?
I want to copy all the .html files in myDir and its subdirectories to ~/otherDir. Here's what I tried (it doesn't work):
$ find myDir -name *.html -print | xargs -0 cp ~/otherDir
usage: cp [-R [-H | ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
cp or rsync, is cp really worth it?
I hope this does not count as a question without a real answer, as I can't seem to find a good reason to use cp(1) over rsync(1) in virtually all circumstances. Should one typically favour rsync over ...
5
votes
5answers
311 views
How to check progress of running cp?
Is it possible to check the progress of running cp process? Some processes respond to various KILL signals so that you can check what is their status. I know that I can run cp with parameter -v but ...
5
votes
2answers
441 views
Batch copy to multiple directories
I have about 9000 files in a directory and I want to mv them into 90 files in 100 directories by filename order, ignoring any remainder. In Copy multiple files from filename X to filename Y?, Caleb ...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
How to copy directories with preserving hardlinks?
How to move directories that have files in common from one to another partition ?
Let's assume we have partition mounted on /mnt/X with directories sharing files with hardlinks.
How to move such ...
4
votes
2answers
443 views
pv for directory copy
I need to copy a very large directory (talking in terabytes here) and want to monitor the progress.
I found that pv is a nice utility, but how can I use it for copying directories recursively? (pv ...
4
votes
2answers
729 views
Difference between cp -r and cp -a
Looking for the difference between cp -r and cp -a? What does recursive mean in terms of copying files from a folder?
4
votes
3answers
1k views
How do I move some but not all files from one directory to another?
I need to move my files from one directory to other. But there is some issues. My file name pattern is like:
apple.0, apple.<n>, n -> {0,1,2,3 ...~ }
so mv apple.* will not work, because ...
4
votes
2answers
651 views
Copy from linux to windows every minute
I currently quickly setup a way to copy files from my linux machine to a windows share that multiple people can access, but I'm looking for a better way.
In Windows 7, I made a folder accessible to ...
4
votes
2answers
2k views
Using regular expressions with cp
This is a simple question. I'm trying to copy all of the files in the current directory that start with "axis-2" and end with ".jar" into a target directory, let's say it's ~/MyDirectory. My first ...
4
votes
3answers
850 views
recursively copy only images and preserve path
I'm working on a website migration. I have a scrape of the site, with all the files and directory structure as you would see them in the URL. I want to pull all images, maintaining the directory ...
4
votes
4answers
885 views
copying multiple files to multiple directories
I've a problem copying many files in different directories. Let me explain better:
Let's say I have the following in a dir:
$ ls
file1 file2 file3 file4 file5 dir1 dir2 dir3
and I want to copy ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
Permission denied (even as root) on a mounted ISO image with Furius ISO Mount
I mounted a ISO image with Furius ISO Mount. I cd to the mounted directory and tried to copy a file with
sudo cp file /dir
but cp writes error message
cp: cannot stat `file': Permission denied
...
4
votes
4answers
857 views
Copy text from one terminal into another
I am logged into ssh to a university account from my home computer. Then I find a file that I want to copy onto my local system. So I open a new shell terminal and am about to use scp to copy that ...
4
votes
4answers
10k views
Copy multiple files from filename X to filename Y?
I'm pretty noob when it comes to unix commands. What I want to do is to copy files within a lexicographic range.
Example of files:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15276 Oct 5 2004 a2ps.cfg
-rw-r--r-- ...
4
votes
1answer
201 views
Symbolic links with ls, mv: forcing the functions to utilize “logical” addresses (remembering the original path)
It seems that for many basic functions operating on symbolic links, the physical path is used by default. However, cd works fine. When moving into a symbolic link, cd remembers where I came from so it ...
4
votes
1answer
242 views
Only use mtime comparison with rsync?
Is it possible to sync files via rsync and let rsync only compare mtime informations?
Or is there another tool for this job?
That means that such a tool only copies src to destination if the src is ...
4
votes
1answer
1k views
Batch copy and rename with regexp
I am wondering whether there is a way how to copy and rename a bunch of files without scripting. I have files with names like prefix_12345678901_12345678901_suffix.ext and I need to copy all of them ...
4
votes
3answers
154 views
Copy files with deleting suffix in name
How can be done coping files that have some suffix at the end, into same dir with the smallest command possible:
Example have directory containing files:
cassandra.yml.example
database.yml.example
...
4
votes
1answer
229 views
ACL mask does not work as expected
If I copy a file with a base ACL of:
u::rw-,g::r--,o::r--
into a directory with a default ACL of:
u::rwx,g::r-x,g:users:rwx,m::rwx,o::r-x
I obtain a file with mask of m::r--. I would have ...
4
votes
2answers
564 views
tar files from another directory without copying them
This should be very simple for experts in here.
I have a Linux account with user disk quota of only 6GB. There is some data-folder in /opt with about 3GB of data with when compressed comes up 1GB. ...
3
votes
3answers
71 views
What are some quick ways of making N copies of a particular file?
Say, if I wanted to make N copies of a.txt, and wanted them to be numbered a1.txt, a2.txt, a3.txt, etc...
How would I do such a thing succinctly?
3
votes
4answers
378 views
Make cp return an error value if the target exists
Is there a way to make cp (from GNU coreutils on Linux) return a nonzero value in case the target file does already exist?
Or is there any other small utility which is commonly available and which ...
3
votes
3answers
294 views
Delete files in a directory which are also in another directory
I copied a directory using this:
cp -r dir/ ../../
without thinking and realized that it copied the contents of dir instead of actually dir to the above directory. Now I have a mess of files I need ...
3
votes
2answers
851 views
How do I copy a symbolic link?
I have a symbolic link to a file in one directory. I would like to have that same link in another directory. How do I copy a symbolic link?
I tried to cp the symbolic link but this copies the file ...
3
votes
2answers
3k views
Using rsync to move (not copy) files between directories?
I have been using rsync to copy files for some time. My understanding is that rsync is faster than cp when some of the files to transfer are already in the destination directory, transferring only the ...
3
votes
1answer
189 views
Copy files in different subdirectories that excludes a string
I'm trying to copy all files of a type in a given directory and subdirectories but excluding files of a different type.
find /var/ftp/pub/bs -iname "*foo*.foo" -exec cp {} /var/ftp/pub/bs1 \;
...
3
votes
1answer
441 views
How to replace a symbolic link with a copy of a file it links to?
Having a (single, no batch filesystem processing needed) symlink, what a command line to use to replace it with a copy of the file it links to?
3
votes
1answer
516 views
copying device nodes
I'm trying to transfer a working Linux installation to a new larger disk, so I've attached the new disk on a USB port, partitioned it and created filesystems.
While copying all the files over I hit a ...
3
votes
3answers
290 views
Copy multiple files to one dir with parallel
I'm using the following script to copy multiple files into one folder:
{ echo $BASE1; echo $BASE2; echo $BASE3; } | parallel cp -a {} $DEST
Is there any way to use only one echo $BASE with brace ...
2
votes
3answers
138 views
Use find + sed + cp to find files and copy them to a directory with a different name
I'm trying to copy a bunch of files named folder.jpg into a folder. The problem is because all the files are named the same thing, I need to rename them in the process. I know I can probably do it ...
2
votes
2answers
259 views
How to copy a piped list of files contained spaces and apostrophes?
I have a list of files generated using find that I want to feed (pipe) to cp. My problem is that the files have spaces and apostrophes in them, leading cp to repeatedly complain that it "cannot stat". ...
2
votes
4answers
508 views
Make directory copies using find
I have a directory with a bunch of subdirectories in it. Thus
/usr/local/src/ccl/ccl-1.8/x86-headers$ ls
elf gl gmp gnome2 gtk2 jni libc
Each of these directories has a further subdirectory C ...
2
votes
2answers
87 views
Using cp, what is the difference between copying to DEST and DIRECTORY?
In the man page for cp, what is the difference between copying to DEST and DIRECTORY?
cp copies a SOURCE to a DEST and SOURCES to a DIRECTORY.
SYNOPSIS
cp [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST
cp ...
2
votes
1answer
95 views
Minimal command to make a copy of a file [duplicate]
I often find myself copy-pasting long path in order to create a copy of a file
cp /path/to/file/file1 /path/to/file/file1.bkp
Is there an alternative utility that will NOT require me to type the ...
2
votes
2answers
990 views
Copy multiple files and append to end of filename
Seems like I really shouldn't need to create a script for this. I'd like to do something cp /etc/*.conf $1.orig or cp /etc/{a.conf,b.conf} _firstarg_.orig Is there a quick and painless way of doing ...
