How can I copy a hidden directory recursively and preserving its permissions?

Question

mkdir backupcache    
cp -rp .cache backupcache # or cp -rp \.cache backupcache does not work

nothing gets copied and directory backupcache remains empty

Solution 1

Don't specify the files or Directory

Lets say you created the new folder (or are going to create one) and want to copy the files to it after the folder is created

mkdir /test/folder
cp -rp /path/to/copy/. /test/folder

This will copy all files/folder recursively from /path/from/copy in to the already existing folder created on the first line.

Another approach is tar. For example:

$cd foo
$tar cf - . | tar -C /path/to/bar -x

Using rsync :

rsync -av src dest

Solution 2

mkdir backupcache    
cp -rp .cache/. backupcache 

that way only the content (/.) of .cache gets copied, not the .cache part.

Comments

[Jasen]

are you sure nothing gets copied? I'd expect there to be backupcache/.cache etc

[Rahul]

@munish tars up the current directory to stdout then pipes it to second tar for untarring stdin on destination.

[UncaAlby]

My fave: (cd {source dir} && tar cpf - * ) | (cd {target dir} && tar xpvf - ) which works with almost any version of "tar"