Owner's manual

Copying Directories (cp)
You can use the cp command with the -r flag to copy directories and directory trees to another
part of the file system. The cp -r command has the following format:
cp -r source destination
The source entry is the name of the directory to be copied. The destination entry is the name
of the directory location to which you want to copy source.
Figure 7 shows how the cp -r command in the following example copies the directory tree
/reports into the directory /project2. It is assumed that the command is entered from your
home directory.
$ cp -r reports project2
Figure 7 Directory Copied Into Another Directory
The /reports directory files file1, file2, file3, and notes, as well as the subdirectory
/status, have been copied to /project2.
Renaming Directories (mv)
You can use the mv command to rename a directory only when that directory is contained in the
same disk partition. The mv command is also used to rename files.
Following is the general format of the mv command:
mv olddirectoryname newdirectoryname
The olddirectoryname entry is the name of the directory you wish to move or rename. The
newdirectoryname entry is the new name you wish to assign to that directory.
In the following example, first change to the /reports directory. Then, enter the ls -i -d
command to list the inode-number for the /status directory (remember, your i-number may be
different from the example):
$ cd reports
$ ls -i -d status
1091 status
Now enter the mv command to change the name of /status to /newstatus. Then list the
i-number for the /newstatus directory:
$ mv status newstatus
$ ls -i -d newstatus
1091 newstatus
Notice that the second ls -i -d command does not list the original directory name /status.
It does list the new directory /newstatus, and it displays the same inode-number (1091 in this
example) for the new directory as for the original /status directory.
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