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Questions tagged [cp]

cp is the command of the Unix operating system that is used to copy files.

222 questions
697
votes
17 answers

How to copy with cp to include hidden files and hidden directories and their contents?

How can I make cp -r copy absolutely all of the files and directories in a directory Requirements: Include hidden files and hidden directories. Be one single command with an flag to include the above. Not need to rely on pattern matching at…
eleven81
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242
votes
10 answers

How to copy symbolic links?

I have directory that contains some symbolic links: user@host:include$ find .. -type l -ls 4737414 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 13 Dec 9 13:47 ../k0607-lsi6/camac -> ../../include 4737415 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 14 Dec 9 13:49…
Basilevs
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122
votes
4 answers

How to copy symlinks to target as normal folders

i have a folder with symlinks: marek@marek$ ls -al /usr/share/solr/ razem 36 drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2010-11-30 08:25 . drwxr-xr-x 358 root root 12288 2010-11-26 12:25 .. drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-11-24 14:29 admin lrwxrwxrwx 1…
Marek
107
votes
9 answers

Copy files in Linux, avoid the copy if files do exist in destination

I need to copy a /home/user folder from one hard disk to another one. It has 100,000 files and around 10G size. I use cp -r /origin /destination sometimes I get some errors due to broken links, permissions and so on. So I fix the error, and need…
Open the way
  • 9,221
102
votes
8 answers

How can I recursively copy files by file extension, preserving directory structure?

At the Linux command line, I'd like to copy a (very large) set of .txt files from one directory (and its subdirectories) to another. I need the directory structure to stay intact, and I need to ignore files except those ending in .txt.
unclaimedbaggage
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63
votes
4 answers

Copying a file only when it is newer than the destination

How do I copy a file in Linux only when the file being copied is newer than the version at the destination? If the file at the destination is newer, I want the file copy to not go ahead.
Eli
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59
votes
4 answers

Copy list of files

I have a list of files separated by spaces in a file list.txt. I'd like to copy them to a new folder. I tried to do: cp `cat list.txt` new_folder but it did not work. How would you do this ? Update: Thank you for all your very interesting answers.…
Klaus
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52
votes
8 answers

Why is -r recursive necessary when copying a directory in Linux?

My question is why is it required to use the -r (recursive) flag when making a copy of a directory? I.e., why do this: cp -r dir1 copyDir1 When would I not want this behavior when copying a directory? Isn’t a recursive copy of a directory really…
Madeleine P. Vincent
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49
votes
2 answers

Use rsync to copy all files except for certain filenames with a certain extension

I have two same-size flash cards, and I want to copy contents of one to the other based on the following rules: I want all directories and subdirectories in place I want to exclude files of type .FOO, .BAR, and .ZIM (all other files are…
macek
  • 6,525
39
votes
4 answers

Recursive, Non-Overwriting File Copy?

I've got a directory that contains a bunch of other folders containing CoffeeScript/ JavaScript files. I'm able to compile the CoffeeScript files into a new folder with the same folder structure fine. What I want to do is copy all the *.js files in…
AlbertEngelB
  • 1,156
31
votes
3 answers

Can I hard link files with rsync instead of copying them?

cp -l hard links files instead of copying them, saving filesystem space. I need to use rsync instead of cp because of its --exclude capabilities. So my question is, how do I get rsync to hard link files instead of copying them? Obviously, this is a…
nnyby
  • 1,509
30
votes
2 answers

Why do we use cp to copy files and not dd? (in unix-derivatives)

For normal file copying in *nix, I've only ever seen people use cp (eg. cp /mnt/mydevice/myfile ~/myfile), but I eventually ran into dd, which appears to do the exact same thing (dd if=/mnt/mydevice/myfile of=~/myfile). I do see that they have some…
user232105
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26
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4 answers

How do you use regular expressions with the cp command in Linux?

I am attempting to only copy a subset of files from one directory to another using cp however am greeted with the message cp: cannot stat [^\.php]': No such file or directory. Is there a way to use regular expressions only using the cp command?
PeanutsMonkey
  • 9,380
25
votes
3 answers

How is install -c different from cp

What is the difference between install -c and cp? Most installations tend to use install -c, but from the man page it doesn't sound like it does anything different than cp (except maybe the ability to also set permissions). When should I use install…
sligocki
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24
votes
4 answers

Copying many files without stopping on errors on OSX

I need to copy several Gb from an external HD to my main HD and some files will cause errors. If I do this with the finder, it will stop on the first error. Is there a way to copy everything no matter the errors? Something like copy of Teracopy for…
cfischer
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