How can I copy a directory and rename it in the same command?

Question

Currently, I'm running these two commands to create a quick backup of the directory. Is there a way to combine the two commands into one, so that I am copying and renaming the new directory in one command?

#cp -R /tf/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/
#mv /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

Solution 1

You should be able to do just

cp -R /tf/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

However, if the target directory already exists, this would append the final part of the source path to the destination path, creating /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21/Custom_App, and then copy the rest of the tree within that.

To prevent this, use /tf/Custom_App/. as the source. Of course, in that case you might want to rm -r /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 first, if you don't want older files lying around there after the copy.

The difference between /some/dir and /some/dir/. was discussed a while back in cp behaves weirdly when . (dot) or .. (dot dot) are the source directory

Solution 2

Alternatively, you can do it like so:

mkdir /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 # prepare the target location
cp -R /tf/Custom_app/. /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21 # copy only the contents

This will allow you to specify your custom location beforehand. Also, notice that it uses the suffix /. This allows you to only copy the contents and exclude its containing folder -- in this case it is the Custom_app folder.

Comments

[jesse_b]

cp -R /tf/Custom_App /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

[Vlastimil Burián]

How about to define alias or function for that two things ;)

[Toby Speight]

An alternative to passing . as the source directory is to use the -T flag to tell cp to overwrite the destination rather than creating a new member inside it.

[ilkkachu]

@TobySpeight, ... in GNU cp.

[Martin Bonner supports Monica]

The /tf/Custom_app/. trick is just what I needed.

[flow2k]

cp -a also works.

[Abel Melquiades Callejo]

@MartinBonner, I agree with you. The answer should have been bash cp -R /tf/Custom_app/. /tf/Custom_App_backups/Custom_App_2017-12-21

[ilkkachu]

@AbelMelquiadesCallejo, wasn't it, then? The second-to-last paragraph says "to prevent this, use /tf/Custom_App/. as the source." (there's the magic trailing dot).

[ilkkachu]

@flow2k, -a includes -R in the versions of cp where it's supported, so yeah, it works. It's just not a standard option, and I don't think it affects the issue at hand.

[flow2k]

@ilkkachu What do you mean when you say -a is not a standard option? I do see it listed on gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/….

[ilkkachu]

@flow2k, GNU utilities in particular have loads of non-standard options, many of them very useful. cp -a of course appears also in e.g. FreeBSD and OpenBSD but it's still not a standard feature, that is, not specified by POSIX. (cp -T that was mentioned earlier seems a GNUism, it's not in POSIX, and not in the BSDs as far as I can see.)