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Questions tagged [cp]

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

217 questions
638
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18 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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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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106
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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
97
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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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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
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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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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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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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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
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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
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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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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
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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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2 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
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23
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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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