Skip to main content
16 events
when toggle format what by license comment
S May 4, 2020 at 1:48 history suggested Tony CC BY-SA 4.0
correction
May 3, 2020 at 22:20 review Suggested edits
S May 4, 2020 at 1:48
Apr 13, 2017 at 12:36 history edited CommunityBot
replaced http://unix.stackexchange.com/ with https://unix.stackexchange.com/
Mar 29, 2014 at 2:33 comment added Ian D. Allen @StéphaneGimenez Yes, I see now that some versions of cp take a/ to mean a/. and some don't. Ubuntu 12.04 does; CentOS 6.5 doesn't. Sigh.
Mar 28, 2014 at 10:49 comment added Ian D. Allen @stéphane Assuming existing directories a and b: Saying cp -r a b means "copy the directory named a into directory b using the same name a under b", so you create b/a and put all the files under it. Saying cp -r a/ b is the same as cp -r a/. b which also means "copy the directory named a/. into directory b using the same name . under b". Of course you don't create b/. because it's already there, and so all the files go under b/. not under b/a.
Jan 23, 2013 at 16:40 comment added vonbrand In such cases what I do is to send the filelist to some temporary file, say /tmp/lst, which I can check carefully (or even edit), and when I'm OK, I go rm -f $(< /tmp/lst) (the $(<is a bash(1)ism, in standard sh(1) it would be the cumbersome `rm -f `cat /tmp/lst`
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:39 history edited Stéphane Gimenez CC BY-SA 3.0
minor corrections
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:35 vote accept nopcorn
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:31 comment added Stéphane Gimenez Yes, but this happens only with some cp versions it seems… Mine (coreutils 8.12) has not this behavior anymore. (It was useful sometimes.)
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:27 comment added nopcorn The one in ./dir/? Should it have been ./dir instead?
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:24 comment added Stéphane Gimenez Ah! that's cause of the final /!
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:21 history edited Stéphane Gimenez CC BY-SA 3.0
added 49 characters in body
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:18 comment added nopcorn No clue, I ran cp -r ./dir/ ../../
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:16 comment added Stéphane Gimenez Ah yes, I got confused by your description. Why did cp copy the content and not the directory in this case?
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:11 comment added nopcorn I'm using the echo method to double check the file names first. However, I need to change dir to . or else it doesn't seem to work. Also, it only lists the files in dir, not the ones also in ../..
Aug 31, 2011 at 13:03 history answered Stéphane Gimenez CC BY-SA 3.0