Copy a Directory from Command Line

By  on  

Copying a directory for the sake of backup is something I do often, especially when I'm trying to figure out why something isn't working when I use an external library.  I'll copy the directory structure as a backup, mess around with the original source until I find a solution, then restore the original and change my overall system code to bring in my revised version.

You can't just use cp to copy a directory structure -- you'll see cp: myDir is a directory (not copied).  You'll need to add a few additional flags to copy a directory structure:

cp -Rp source source_copy

The above command copies the directory recursively while keeping the same permissions!

Recent Features

  • By
    Page Visibility API

    One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

  • By
    CSS Filters

    CSS filter support recently landed within WebKit nightlies. CSS filters provide a method for modifying the rendering of a basic DOM element, image, or video. CSS filters allow for blurring, warping, and modifying the color intensity of elements. Let's have...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a Download Package Using MooTools Moousture

    Zohaib Sibt-e-Hassan recently released a great mouse gestures library for MooTools called Moousture. Moousture allows you to trigger functionality by moving your mouse in specified custom patterns. Too illustrate Moousture's value, I've created an image download builder using Mooustures and PHP. The XHTML We provide...

  • By
    MooTools TextOverlap Plugin

    Developers everywhere seem to be looking for different ways to make use of JavaScript libraries. Some creations are extremely practical, others aren't. This one may be more on the "aren't" side but used correctly, my TextOverlap plugin could add another interesting design element...

Discussion

  1. Why do you have the -s flag in there? Looking at the --help for cp, that’s the option to “make symbolic links instead of copying”, and according to Stack Overflow http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1240636 , that doesn’t even work recursively (with the -R flag). (Nor can I see why you would want to copy an entire directory recursively only for it to be populated with symlinks, especially “for the sake of backup”.) Typo?

    • EDIT: David has since corrected the error in question.

  2. Another great option that I somehow always forget to use is -a (archive), used like so:

    cp -a source source_copy

    It copies structure and permissions and also preserves symlinks.

  3. Just use rsync, faster and more options. )

  4. Good to know. But I agree with @John

  5. I prefer to use rsync for this purpose

    rsync -rav ./source/ ./destination/

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!