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Accepted
Andrew Hardiman
Asked: 2017-08-03 08:44:42 +0800 CST

How do I copy a directory into itself?

  • 772

I can copy a directory like so:

~$ cp -r ./Desktop/ /tmp/

Similarly, if I just wanted to copy the files from within a directory, I could do so: 

~$ cp -r ./Desktop/. /tmp/

Things become a little more tricky if I want to copy the source directory into a target directory, that is a sub-directory of the source. i.e. copy a directory into itself. For example:

~$ cp -r ./Desktop/ ./Desktop/sub/

Would throw the following error: cp: cannot copy a directory, './Desktop/', into itself, './Desktop/sub/'

This can be circumnavigated, somewhat, using extglob, like so:

~$ cp -r ./Desktop/!(sub) ./Desktop/sub/

However, this last command is dependent on the directory sub already existing.

How can you copy a directory into itself, in such a fashion that the command to do so creates the sub directory at the same time?

command-line

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Use rsync instead of cp:

    rsync -Rr ./Desktop/ ./Desktop/sub/

    Let's test it out:

    $ cd /tmp
$ mkdir -p Desktop/sub
$ touch Desktop/a-file
$ ls -F Desktop
a-file sub/
$ cp ./Desktop ./Desktop/sub
cp: cannot copy a directory, './Desktop', into itself, './Desktop/sub/Desktop'

    However rsync will work fine:

    $ rsync -Rr ./Desktop/ ./Desktop/sub/
$ ls -F Desktop/sub/
Desktop/
    • 14

  2. You can always use the /tmp for a transmission. （without rsync）

    ~$ ls
1  2  3  a  b  c  ddd  w  wow
~$ cp -r . /tmp/TEMP
~$ mv /tmp/TEMP copy_dir
~$ ls
1  2  3  a  b  c  copy_dir  ddd  w  wow
~$ ls copy_dir/
1  2  3  a  b  c  ddd  w  wow

    Or, make a function:

    function cpc() { cp -r . /tmp/cpc-$1 && mv /tmp/cpc-$1 .; }

    Like this:

    ~$ function cpc() { cp -r . /tmp/cpc-$1 && mv /tmp/cpc-$1 .; }
~$ ls
1  2  3
~$ cpc hhh
~$ ls hhh
1  2  3
~$ ls
1  2  3  hhh
~$
    • 2