UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

that's the situation :

copy users/abc/def/car.exe to

own/users/abc/def/car.exe?

the second directory doesn't exists. when you make

cp -p users/abc/def/car.exe own/users/abc/def/car.exe it only

says that the directory "own/users/abc/def" is invalid. I just don't

wanna create all directories by "mkdir".

just copy the file with the root folder to another folder....but not the whole directory, only one file.

thx for all help....

try: "cp -pr"

That should copy retaining the permissions, etc. as well as recursively copy the directory structure.

I've already tried......the same result.

It can't be that the 'super unix' couldn't copy like the old dos...

for example copy c:/users/abc/cars.exe c:/own/users/cars.exe would work there perfectly.

there must be a way under unix....

so you're doing the :

Code:

cp -pr users/abc/def/car.exe own

All you'd need to do in this case would be to create the one "own" folder. But I guess that is the difference between the "super unix" and what you have.. sorry I couldn't help more.

From the Manpage... regarding -r option...

If dest_directory does not exist, cp creates
it and copies the subtree rooted at file1 to dest_directory.
Note that cp -r cannot merge subtrees.


In english that means it will create the directory that is the root for the file being copied....However, IF a file exists that is the same as the source it will fail.


file1. An error occurs if dest_directory/file1
already exists.

I just don't understand really.

the source folder and the destination folder aren't the same.

they should be nearly the same so that the subtree of the

copied file is the same but in another folder.

so the destination convert/abc/ dir doesn't exist,

and the file to copy source is abc/test.exe, just taking along the

subfolder.

when I make

cp -pr users/abc/def/car.exe own

unix only creates a file "own" with the content of "car.exe" under the root folder, that's nonsense.

I've found out that

[cp -p users/abc/test.exe /own] only works if the folder has been prepared, and unix copies the "test.exe" in "/own"

so you'll get sth. like
"own/test.exe"...but I need "own/users/abc/test.exe"...

and if the folder "own" isn't given, you'll get

like messages "no file and no folder"..

so you can't create sth. like

[cp -pr users/abc/test.exe own/users/abc/test.exe] because neither the folder [own] nor the subfolders [own/users] & [own/users/abc] are created.

but I've got to copy some specific files with their subfolder, f.i. [users/abc/test.exe] to the folder [own], that you get finally
[own/users/abc/test.exe]..

but I just don't wanna create all the subfolders, so I wanna make a simple loop, which isn't really a problem. the only problem is the syntax of the cp, look above.