-a, --archive
Preserve as much as possible of the structure and attributes of the original files in
the copy (but do not preserve directory structure). Equivalent to -dpR.

-d, --no-dereference
Copy symbolic links as symbolic links rather than copying the files that they point
to, and preserve hard links between source files in the copies.

-f, --force
Remove existing destination files, and never prompt before doing so.

-i, --interactive
Prompt whether to overwrite existing regular destination files.

-l, --link
Make hard links instead of copies of non-directories.

-p, --preserve
Preserve the original files' owner, group, permissions, and timestamps.

-P, --parents
Form the name of each destination file by appending to the target directory a slash
and the specified name of the source file. The last argument given to cp must be the
name of an existing directory. For example, the command:
cp --parents a/b/c existing_dir
copies the file `a/b/c' to `existing_dir/a/b/c', creating any missing intermediate
directories.

-r Copy directories recursively, copying any non-directories and non-symbolic links
(that is, FIFOs and special files) as if they were regular files. This means trying
to read the data in each source file and writing it to the destination. Thus, with
this option, `cp' may well hang indefinitely reading a FIFO or /dev/tty. (This is a
bug. It means that you have to avoid -r and use -R if you don't know what is in the
tree you are copying. Opening an unknown device file, say a scanner, has unknown
effects on the hardware.)

-R, --recursive
Copy directories recursively, preserving non-directories (see -r just above).