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Accepted
Michael Durrant
Asked: 2012-04-24 10:23:00 +0800 CST

How can I copy a file to a new location, creating the directory as well

  • 772

I want to cp a file to another directory but that directory doesn't exist yet.

So I would do:

mkdir /new_place
cp the_file /new_place

Can I do this in one?
I imagine something like cp the_file -m /new_place if "m" stood for "make dir's that don't exist"

Would this be a chance to use scp, rsync or another copying utility?

command-line directory files copy

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    With --parents you can recreate the directories from the source to the destination. For example: 

    cp --parents ~/Downloads/test.txt ~/Desktop/

    Will create the subdirectories ~/Desktop/home/desgua/Downloads and then copy test.txt into it; and

    cp --parents Downloads/test.txt ~/Desktop/

    will create ~/Desktop/Downloads.

    • 18

  2. You can do this with the following command

    # rsync --recursive the_file /path/to/your/dir/that/doesn't/exists/

    Note: Use of "/" at the end of path:

    • When using "/" at the end of source, rsync will copy the content of the last folder. When not using "/" at the end of source, rsync will copy the last folder and the content of the folder.

    • When using "/" at the end of destination, rsync will paste the data inside the last folder. When not using "/" at the end of destination, rsync will create a folder with the last destination folder name and paste the data inside that folder.

    • 5

  3. desgua's answer is proper and simple way, but what if you need a protable way ? POSIX defines cp without --parent flag, so it's not gonna work across all systems.

    One option is to write it in Python if it's installed on the system:

    #!/usr/bin/env python3
from os import makedirs
from os.path import exists,basename
from shutil import copyfile
from sys import argv

if len(argv) < 3:
   print('Not enough args',file=stderr)
   exit(1)

filename = basename(argv[2])
dirs = argv[2].replace(filename,'')
makedirs(dirs)
copyfile(argv[1],argv[2])

    This works as so:

    $ ./mkdircp.py /etc/passwd $HOME/foodir/bardir/passwd.copy
$ stat --printf "%F\n" $HOME/foodir/bardir/passwd.copy
regular file
$ head -n 1 $HOME/foodir/bardir/passwd.copy
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
    • 1

  4. You can easily type two commands by using ;. For instance:

    mkdir folder; cp file.html folder

    and it should work.

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