UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all,

I've got this question about using cp for copying multiples files from the same source directory to another directory, considering that my working directory ain't the same of the source directory.

Let me give you a simple example what I'm talking about:

Suppose the following files here:

/usr/home/rod/file1.txt
/usr/home/rod/file2.pdf

Now, suppose that:

$pwd
/

And what I would like to know is:

is there a way of using cp for copying file1.txt and file2.pdf without having to type the absolute path for each of those files?

I was thinking of something like:

cp /usr/home/rod/{file1.txt, file2.pdf} /tmp

By doing that, file1.txt and file2.pdf would be copied to the destination folder /tmp, and then I wouldn't need to type the absolute path twice, avoiding the traditional approach like:

cp /usr/home/rod/file1.txt /usr/home/rod/file2.pdf /tmp

Please, note that my working directory, i.e, the output of the pwd command, is different of the directory where the files I want to copy are.

In my previous example, pwd returns /

Also, shell might be bash or csh.

Any help?
Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

rod~

Only in bash". Execute the commands in a subshell.

Code:

(
cd /usr/home/rod
cp file1.txt file2.pdf /tmp
)

Never found a reason to use "csh".

Hi methyl
Thanks for replying me.

I mentioned about csh because sometimes I use FreeBSD and csh is its default shell.
I understand what you suggested me to do and that works fine.
However, I'm still wondering if there is a 'more direct' way of doing that task... lol
Thanks again.