Copies Files Commands in Linux

cp [options] source-file destination-file

cp [options] source-file-list destination-directory

The cp utility copies one or more files. It can either make a copy of a single file (first format) or copy

one or more files to a directory (second format). With the –R option, cp can copy directory hierarchies.

Arguments: The source-file is the pathname of the file that cp makes a copy of. The destinationfile

is the pathname that cp assigns to the resulting copy of the file.

The source-file-list is a list of one or more pathnames of files that cp makes copies

of. The destination-directory is the pathname of the directory in which cp places

the copied files. With this format, cp gives each copied file the same simple filename

as its source-file.

The –R option enables cp to copy directory hierarchies recursively from the sourcefile-

list into the destination-directory.

Options: Under Linux, cp accepts the common options described on page 603. Options preceded

by a double hyphen (––) work under Linux only. Except as noted, options named with

a single letter and preceded by a single hyphen work under Linux and OS X.

––archive  –a  Attempts to preserve the owner, group, permissions, access date, and modification date of source file(s) while copying recursively without dereferencing symbolic links. Same as –dpR.

––backup –b If copying a file would remove or overwrite an existing file, this option makes

a backup copy of the file that would be overwritten. The backup copy has the same name as the destination-file with a tilde (~) appended to it. When you use both ––backup and ––force, cp makes a backup copy when you try to copy a file over itself. For more backup options, search for Backup options in the core utils info page.

–d  For each file that is a symbolic link, copies the symbolic link, not the file the link points to. Also preserves hard links in destination-files that exist between corresponding source-files. This option is equivalent to ––no-dereference and ––preserve=links.

––force  – f When the destination-file exists and cannot be opened for writing, causes cp to try to remove destination-file before copying source-file. This option is useful when the user copying a file does not have write permission to an existing destination-file but does have write permission to the directory containing the destination-file. Use this option with –b to back up a destination file before removing or overwriting it.

–H (partial dereference) For each file that is a symbolic link, copies the file the link points to, not the symbolic link itself. This option affects files specified on the command line; it does not affect files found while descending a directory hierarchy.

This option treats files that are not symbolic links normally. Under OS X works with –R only. See page 623 for an example of the use of the –H versus –L options.

––interactive –i Prompts you whenever cp would overwrite a file. If you respond with a string that starts with y or Y, cp copies the file. If you enter anything else, cp does not copy the file.

––dereference –L (dereference) For each file that is a symbolic link, copies the file the link points to, not the symbolic link itself. This option affects all files and treats files that are not symbolic links normally. Under OS X works with –R only.

––no-dereference –P (no dereference) For each file that is a symbolic link, copies the symbolic link, not the file the link points to. This option affects all files and treats files that are not symbolic links normally. Under OS X works with –R only.

––preserve[=attr] –p Creates a destination-file with the same owner, group, permissions, access date, and modification date as the source-file. The –p option does not take an argument.

Without attr, ––preserve works as described above. The attr is a commaseparated

list that can include mode (permissions and ACLs), ownership (owner and group), timestamps (access and modification dates), links (hard  links), and all (all attributes).

––parents  Copies a relative pathname to a directory, creating directories as needed. See the “Examples” section.

––recursive –R or –r

Recursively copies directory hierarchies including ordinary files. Under Linux, the ––no-dereference (–d) option is implied: With the –R, –r, or ––recursive option, cp copies the links (not the files the links point to). The –r and ––recursive options are available under Linux only.

––update –u Copies only when the destination-file does not exist or when it is older

than the source-file (i.e., this option will not overwrite a newer destination file).

––verbose –v Displays the name of each file as cp copies it.

Examples

The first command makes a copy of the file letter in the working directory. The name of the copy is letter.sav.

$ cp letter letter.sav

The next command copies all files with filenames ending in .c into the archives directory, which is a subdirectory of the working directory. Each copied file retains its simple filename but has a new absolute pathname.

 The –p (––preserve) option causes the copied files in archives to have the same owner, group, permissions, access date, and modification date as the source files.

$ cp -p *.c archives.

The next example copies memo from Sam’s home directory to the working directory:

$ cp ~sam/memo .

The next example runs under Linux and uses the ––parents option to copy the file memo/thursday/max to the dir directory as dir/memo/thursday/max. The find utility shows the newly created directory hierarchy.

$ cp --parents memo/thursday/max dir

$ find dir

dir

dir/memo

dir/memo/thursday

dir/memo/thursday/max

The following command copies the files named memo and letter into another directory.

The copies have the same simple filenames as the source files (memo and letter) but have different absolute pathnames. The absolute pathnames of the copied files are /home/sam/memo and /home/sam/letter, respectively.

$ cp memo letter /home/sam

The final command demonstrates one use of the –f (––force) option. Max owns the working directory and tries unsuccessfully to copy one over another file (me) that he does not have write permission for. Because he has write permission to the directory that holds me, Max can remove the file but cannot write to it.

The –f (––force) option unlinks, or removes, me and then copies one to the new file named me.

$ ls -ld

drwxrwxr-x 2 max max 4096 Oct 21 22:55 .

$ ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3555 Oct 21 22:54 me

-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 1222 Oct 21 22:55 one

$ cp one me

cp: cannot create regular file 'me': Permission denied

$ cp -f one me

$ ls -l

-rw-r--r-- 1 max max 1222 Oct 21 22:58 me

-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max 1222 Oct 21 22:55 one

If Max had used the –b (––backup) option in addition to –f (––force), cp would have created a backup of me named me~. 

Copies Files Commands in Linux