cp(1) General Commands Manual cp(1) NAME cp - copy files and directory subtrees SYNOPSIS extarg ] file1 new_file extarg ] file1 [file2 ...] dest_directory extarg ] directory1 [directory2 ...] dest_directory DESCRIPTION copies: * file1 to new or existing new_file, * file1 to existing dest_directory, * file1, file2, ... to existing dest_directory, * directory subtree directory1, to new or existing dest_directory. or * multiple directory subtrees directory1, directory2, ... to new or existing dest_directory. fails if file1 and new_file are the same (be cautious when using shell metacharacters). When destination is a directory, one or more files are copied into that directory. If two or more files are copied, the destina- tion must be a directory. When copying a single file to a new file, if new_file exists, its contents are destroyed. If the access permissions of the destination dest_directory or existing destination file new_file forbid writing, aborts and produces an error mes- sage ``cannot create file''. To copy one or more directory subtrees to another directory, the option is required. The option is ignored if used when copying a file to another file or files to a directory. If new_file is a link to an existing file with other links, overwrites the existing file and retains all links. If copying a file to an existing file, does not change existing file access permission bits, owner, or group. When copying files to a directory or to a new file that does not already exist, creates a new file with the same file miscellaneous bits as file1, except that the sticky bit is not set unless you are the user with appro- priate privilege (see chmod(2)). The owner and group of the new file or files are those of the user. The last modification time of new_file (and last access time, if new_file did not exist) and the last access time of the source file1 are set to the time the copy was made. Options (interactive copy) Cause to write a prompt to standard error and wait for a response before copying a file that would overwrite an existing file. If the re- sponse from the standard input is affirmative, the file is copied if permissions allow the copy. If the (interactive) and (forced- copy) options are both specified, the option is ignored. Force existing destination pathnames to be removed before copying, without prompting for confirmation. This option has the effect of destroying and replacing any existing file whose name and directory location conflicts with the name and location of the new file cre- ated by the copy operation. (preserve permissions) Causes to preserve in the copy as many of the modification time, access time, file mode, user ID, and group ID as allowed by permissions. (recursive subtree copy) Cause to copy the subtree rooted at each source directory to dest_direc- tory. If dest_directory exists, it must be a directory, in which case creates a directory within dest_directory with the same name as file1 and copies the subtree rooted at file1 to dest_direc- tory/file1. An error occurs if dest_directory/file1 already ex- ists. If dest_directory does not exist, creates it and copies the subtree rooted at file1 to dest_directory. Note that cannot merge subtrees. Usually normal files and directories are copied. Character special devices, block special devices, network special files, named pipes, symbolic links, and sockets are copied, if the user has access to the file; otherwise, a warning is printed stating that the file cannot be created, and the file is skipped. dest_directory should not reside within directory1, nor should di- rectory1 have a cyclic directory structure, since in both cases at- tempts to copy an infinite amount of data. (recursive subtree copy) The option is identical to the option with the exception that directo- ries copied by the option are created with read, write, and search permission for the owner. User and group permissions remain un- changed. With the and options, in addition to regular files and directories, also copies FIFOs, character and block device files and symbolic links. Only superusers can copy device files. All other users get an error. Symbolic links are copied so the target points to the same location that the source did. Warning: While copying a directory tree that has device special files, use the option; otherwise, an infinite amount of data is read from the device special file and is duplicated as a special file in the destination directory occupying large file system space. Specifies the handling of any extent attributes of the file[s] to be copied. extarg takes one of the following values. Issues a warning message if extent attributes can not be copied, but copies the file anyway. Does not copy the extent attributes. Fails to copy the file if the extent attribute can not be copied. Extent attributes can not be copied if the files are being copied to a file system which does not support extent attributes or if that file system has a different block size than the original. If is not specified, the default value for extarg is Access Control Lists (ACLs) If new_file is a new file, or if a new file is created in dest_directory, it inherits the access control list of the original file1, file2, etc., al- tered to reflect any difference in ownership between the two files (see acl(5)). EXTERNAL INFLUENCES Environment Variables determines the interpretation of text as single and/or multi-byte charac- ters. and determine the local language equivalent of y (for yes/no queries). determines the language in which messages are displayed. If is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See environ(5). International Code Set Support Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported. EXAMPLES The following command moves the directory sourcedir and its contents to a new location (targetdir) in the file system. Since creates the new direc- tory, the destination directory targetdir should not already exist. The option copies the subtree (files and subdirectories) in directory sourcedir to directory targetdir. The double ampersand (&&) causes a con- ditional action. If the operation on the left side of the && is success- ful, the right side is executed (and removes the old directory). If the operation on the left of the && is not successful, the old directory is not removed. This example is equivalent to: To copy all files and directory subtrees in the current directory to an ex- isting targetdir, use: To copy all files and directory subtrees in sourcedir to targetdir, use: Note that directory pathnames can precede both sourcedir and targetdir. To create a zero-length file, use any of the following: DEPENDENCIES NFS Access control lists of networked files are summarized (as returned in by but not copied to the new file. When using or on such files, a is not printed after the mode value when asking for permission to overwrite a file. AUTHOR was developed by AT&T, the University of California, Berkeley, and HP. SEE ALSO cpio(1), ln(1), mv(1), rm(1), link(1M), lstat(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2), symlink(4), acl(5). STANDARDS CONFORMANCE cp(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXTERNAL INFLUENCES | EXAMPLES | DEPENDENCIES | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
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