How can I copy a directory and rename it in the same command?

Question

Currently, I'm running these two commands to create a quick backup of the directory. Is there a way to combine the two commands into one, so that I am copying and renaming the new directory in one command?

#cp -R /tf/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/
#mv /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

Answer 1

You should be able to do just

cp -R /tf/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

However, if the target directory already exists, this would append the final part of the source path to the destination path, creating /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21/Custom_App, and then copy the rest of the tree within that.

To prevent this, use /tf/Custom_App/. as the source. Of course, in that case you might want to rm -r /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 first, if you don't want older files lying around there after the copy.

The difference between /some/dir and /some/dir/. was discussed a while back in cp behaves weirdly when . (dot) or .. (dot dot) are the source directory

Answer 2

Alternatively, you can do it like so:

mkdir /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 # prepare the target location
cp -R /tf/Custom_app/. /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 # copy only the contents

This will allow you to specify your custom location beforehand. Also, notice that it uses the suffix /. This allows you to only copy the contents and exclude its containing folder -- in this case it is the Custom_app folder.

Answer 3

I came across this page searching for the same advice. On my Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) system, I attempted this command and used the same syntax as what @ilkkachu presented. Except I added a trailing slash to my dest folder, eg, dest/ . The result copied the source folder plus its siblings! When I retried without the trailing slash I got the desired result.

So, for future reference, be aware that adding a trailing slash to the dest folder will copy the source siblings as well (.. at least, that was MY experience)

Answer 4

You can easily proceed by creating your target directory:

mkdir Custom_App_2017-12-21
cd Custom_App_2017-12-21/
cp -R /tf/Custom_App/* .

The last command will copy all your relevant files into a newly-made directory.