If we copy a file we create a completely independent copy of the file
possibly in a different directory or with a different name. We copy
files using the cp
command. As the mv
command the cp command takes a
source and destination as parameters. Let us now create a copy of the
file 'd' in the 'programs' directory:
$cd programs $ls -F d f* $cp d e $ls -F d e f* $
If we want to copy a file to a different directory we can simply specify that directory as the second parameter to the cp command:
$ls -F .. a b c data/ junk/ programs/ $cp d .. $ls -F .. a b c d data/ junk/ programs/ $
If we want to change the name of the file while copying we just append it to the destination directory name:
$cp d ../p $ls -F .. a c data/ p b d junk/ programs/ $
Now let us remove those files and try to copy a whole directory:
$cd .. $ls -F a c data/ p b d junk/ programs/ $rm d p $ls -F a b c data/ junk/ programs/ $cp data safedata cp: data: omitting directory $
As we see cp cannot simply copy a directory. We have to explicitly tell it to recursively copy a directory, its files and subdirectories:
$cp -R data safedata $ls -F a b c data/ junk/ programs/ safedata/ $ls -F safedata g h i personal/ $ls -F safedata/personal m n o $
We have created a complete copy of the directory data and all its subdirectories. How do we now get rid of them though?