Content-type: text/html
/usr/bin/cp [-fip@] source_file target_file
/usr/bin/cp [-fip@] source_file... target
/usr/bin/cp -r | -R [-H | -L | -P] [-fip@] source_dir... target
/usr/xpg4/bin/cp [-fip@] source_file target_file
/usr/xpg4/bin/cp [-fip@] source_file... target
/usr/xpg4/bin/cp -r | -R [-H | -L | -P] [-fip@] source_dir... target
In the first synopsis form, neither source_file nor target_file are directory files, nor can they have the same name. The cp utility copies the contents of source_file to the destination path named by target_file. If target_file exists, cp overwrites its contents, but the mode (and ACL if applicable), owner, and group associated with it are not changed. The last modification time of target_file and the last access time of source_file are set to the time the copy was made. If target_file does not exist, cp creates a new file named target_file that has the same mode as source_file except that the sticky bit is not set unless the user is super-user. In this case, the owner and group of target_file are those of the user, unless the setgid bit is set on the directory containing the newly created file. If the directory's setgid bit is set, the newly created file has the group of the containing directory rather than of the creating user. If target_file is a link to another file, cp overwrites the link destination with the contents of source_file; the link(s) from target_file remains.
In the second synopsis form, one or more source_files are copied to the directory specified by target. It is an error if any source_file is a file of type directory, if target either does not exist or is not a directory.
In the third synopsis form, one or more directories specified by source_dir are copied to the directory specified by target. Either -r or -R must be specified. For each source_dir, cp copies all files and subdirectories.
The following options are supported for both /usr/bin/cp and /usr/xpg4/bin/cp:
-f
-H
If the source_file operand is a symbolic link, then cp copies the file referenced by the symbolic link for the source_file operand. All other symbolic links encountered during traversal of a file hierarchy are preserved.
-i
-L
Copies files referenced by symbolic links. Symbolic links encountered during traversal of a file hierarchy are not preserved.
-P
Copies symbolic links. Symbolic links encountered during traversal of a file hierarchy are preserved.
-r
-R
-@
Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H, -L, and -P is not considered an error. The last option specified determines the behavior of the utility.
The following option is supported for /usr/bin/cp only:
-p
In order to preserve the owner and group id, permission modes, and modification and access times, users must have the appropriate file access permissions. This includes being superuser or the same owner id as the destination file.
When both -p and -@ options are specified, the -p option determines the behavior. However, the command can fail if unable to preserve extended attributes.
The following option is supported for /usr/xpg4/bin/cp only:
-p
In order to preserve the owner and group id, permission modes, and modification and access times, users must have the appropriate file access permissions. This includes being superuser or the same owner id as the destination file.
When both -p and -@ options are specified, the last specified -p or -@ option determines the behavior.
The following operands are supported:
source_file
source_dir
target_file
target
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of cp when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
Example 1 Copying a File
The following example copies a file:
example% cp goodies goodies.old example% ls goodies* goodies goodies.old
Example 2 Copying a List of Files
The following example copies a list of files to a destination directory:
example% cp ~/src/* /tmp
Example 3 Copying a Directory
The following example copies a directory, first to a new, and then to an existing destination directory
example% ls ~/bkup /usr/example/fred/bkup not found example% cp -r ~/src ~/bkup example% ls -R ~/bkup x.c y.c z.sh example% cp -r ~/src ~/bkup example% ls -R ~/bkup src x.c y.c z.sh src: x.c y.c z.s
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of cp: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
The following exit values are returned:
0
>0
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
|
|
chmod(1), chown(1), setfacl(1), utime(2), attributes(5), environ(5), fsattr(5), largefile(5), standards(5)
The permission modes of the source file are preserved in the copy.
A -- permits the user to mark the end of any command line options explicitly, thus allowing cp to recognize filename arguments that begin with a -.