Is there a way to make mv create the directory to be moved to if it doesn't exist?

Question

So, if I'm in my home directory and I want to move foo.c to ~/bar/baz/foo.c , but those directories don't exist, is there some way to have those directories automatically created, so that you would only have to type

mv foo.c ~/bar/baz/ 

and everything would work out? It seems like you could alias mv to a simple bash script that would check if those directories existed and if not would call mkdir and then mv, but I thought I'd check to see if anyone had a better idea.

Solution 1

How about this one-liner (in bash):

mkdir --parents ./some/path/; mv yourfile.txt $_

Breaking that down:

mkdir --parents ./some/path
# if it doesn't work; try
mkdir -p ./some/path

creates the directory (including all intermediate directories), after which:

mv yourfile.txt $_

moves the file to that directory ($_ expands to the last argument passed to the previous shell command, ie: the newly created directory).

I am not sure how far this will work in other shells, but it might give you some ideas about what to look for.

Here is an example using this technique:

$ > ls
$ > touch yourfile.txt
$ > ls
yourfile.txt
$ > mkdir --parents ./some/path/; mv yourfile.txt $_
$ > ls -F
some/
$ > ls some/path/
yourfile.txt

Solution 2

mkdir -p `dirname /destination/moved_file_name.txt`  
mv /full/path/the/file.txt  /destination/moved_file_name.txt

Solution 3

Save as a script named mv.sh

#!/bin/bash
# mv.sh
dir="$2" # Include a / at the end to indicate directory (not filename)
tmp="$2"; tmp="${tmp: -1}"
[ "$tmp" != "/" ] && dir="$(dirname "$2")"
[ -a "$dir" ] ||
mkdir -p "$dir" &&
mv "$@"

Or put at the end of your ~/.bashrc file as a function that replaces the default mv on every new terminal. Using a function allows bash keep it memory, instead of having to read a script file every time.

function mvp ()
{
    dir="$2" # Include a / at the end to indicate directory (not filename)
    tmp="$2"; tmp="${tmp: -1}"
    [ "$tmp" != "/" ] && dir="$(dirname "$2")"
    [ -a "$dir" ] ||
    mkdir -p "$dir" &&
    mv "$@"
}

Example usage:

mv.sh file ~/Download/some/new/path/ # <-End with slash

These based on the submission of Chris Lutz.

Solution 4

You can use mkdir:

mkdir -p ~/bar/baz/ && \
mv foo.c ~/bar/baz/

A simple script to do it automatically (untested):

#!/bin/sh

# Grab the last argument (argument number $#)    
eval LAST_ARG=\$$#

# Strip the filename (if it exists) from the destination, getting the directory
DIR_NAME=`echo $2 | sed -e 's_/[^/]*$__'`

# Move to the directory, making the directory if necessary
mkdir -p "$DIR_NAME" || exit
mv "$@"

Solution 5

It sounds like the answer is no :). I don't really want to create an alias or func just to do this, often because it's one-off and I'm already in the middle of typing the mv command, but I found something that works well for that:

mv *.sh  shell_files/also_with_subdir/ || mkdir -p $_

If mv fails (dir does not exist), it will make the directory (which is the last argument to the previous command, so $_ has it). So just run this command, then up to re-run it, and this time mv should succeed.

View more solutions

Comments

[strager]

With your code, the move isn't performed if the directory does not exist!

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

And you missed the "-p" flag to mkdir.

[visual_learner]

If a directory doesn't exist, why create it if you're just going to move it? (-p flag fixed)

[strager]

I mean, when you run the script and the directory $2 does not exist, it is created but the file is not copied.

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

When I run "$ dirname ~?bar/baz/", I get "/home/dmckee/bar", which is not what yo want here...

[strager]

@dmckee, Ah, you are right. Any idea on how to solve this? If you input ~/bar/baz you either (a) want to copy to ~/bar/ and rename to baz, or (b) copy to ~/bar/baz/. What's the better tool for the job?

[strager]

@dmckee, I've used regexp/sed to come up with a solution. Does it work to your liking? =]

[Jonathan Leffler]

Nice, except $2 is not the last argument unless $# = 2. I have a program, la, that prints its last argument. I used to use it in a version of the cp command (to add the current directory if the last argument wasn't a directory). Even modern shells support $1..$9 only; a Perl script may be better.

[ypnos]

he gave a simple construct and added information on how it should be expanded. Why vote it down?!

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

Closer. But why are you making the construction of the target directory conditional on the non-existence of the file to be moved?

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

@ypnos: Because so far it doesn't do what it is supposed to?

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

And I haven't fixed it myself for pedagogical reasons.

[strager]

@Leffler, Not true -- I know bash supports more than 9 arguments (using ${123} is one method). I don't know Perl, so feel free to make an answer yourself. =]

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

And even if you're using a plain vanilla /bin/sh, you can loop over 'store=${store} " " $1; shift;' until only one argument remains... Though at that point we've lost any semblance of elegance the script might have had.

[strager]

dmckee, I was going to try shift, but then found a more elegent solution. See update.

[dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten]

The logic here: No point in try the move unless $1 exists, then if the target does not exist, make it. Might want to add a test so we don't overwrite an existing regular file named '~/bar/baz'.

[strager]

Agreed, but this is a less general solution. My solution could serve as a mv substitude (thus an alias in bash) (assuming it works properly -- still untested!).

[Alexey Feldgendler]

Interesting, but doesn't answer the OP's question.

[Jens]

Why the obsession with redundant ./ everywhere? The args are not commands in PATH without the . directory...

[Brian Duncan]

This answers the question most accurately IMHO. The user would like an enhanced mv command. Especially useful for scripting, ie you don't necessarily want to run the checks and run mkdir -p anytime you need to use mv. But since I would want the default error behavior for mv, I changed the function name to mvp -- so that I know when I could be creating directories.

[Ulises Layera]

Seems like the best solution idea, butimplementation crashes a lot.

[Sepero]

@UlisesLayera I modified the algorithm to make it more robust. It should not crash now

[bazz]

Could someone please explain the meaning of [ ! -a "$dir" ] I have conducted experiments with the right half being true and false, both evaluated to true.. ??? For other's sake, tmp="${tmp: -1}" appears to grab the last character of the file to make sure it's not a path (/)

[Sepero]

@bazz It should be doing "if $dir does not exist, then continue". Unfortunately, you are correct, there is a bug when using "! -a", and I don't know why. I have edited the code a bit, and should now work.

[ArchLinuxTux]

ok, so at first I didn't understand why Chris Lutz checks $1, since $2 is the directory to be created. But Chris Lutz is absolutely right, if $1 does not exist mv will raise an error and therefore one may also not want the destination directory to be created. In the second if-condition one may not only test for existance of type directory but for existance regardless of type. Since when it exists and it is a file makedir will cause an error even with the -p option (btw. which it will not do for an existing directory with -p option on archlinux). So I suggest to test for existance regardless of

[ArchLinuxTux]

type. And finally @dmckee's last point: If one wants this function/script to behave like the standard mv apart from creating nested directories, than one shall not add a test whether we are copying a file or a directory. But that may be different depending on one's needs. So if you dmckee meant this as optional we both agree ;).

[cab404]

to make it standalone sh script, just replace $dest and $src with $1 and $2

[sakurashinken]

for the newbies, --parents can be shortened to -p

[vdegenne]

I am the only one to realize this code makes no sense? You create recursively the absolute path to the existing file (which means this path already exist) and then move the file to a location (which in your example doesn't exist).

[Joshua Pinter]

Oddly, --parents is not available on macOS 10.13.2. You need to use -p.

[TroyHurts]

@user544262772 GNU coreutils' dirname doesn't require its argument to exist, it's pure string manipulation. Can't speak for other distributions. Nothing wrong with this code afaict.

[hhbilly]

Doesn't work if moving a file eg ./some/path/foo. In this case the command should be: mkdir -p ./some/path/foo; mv yourfile.txt $_:h

[Tylla]

Yepp, kinda silly.:-) If $2 is a directory (as in the original question) then it fails miserably, as the last directory will be deleted, so 'mv' will fail. And if $2 already exists then it also tries to delete it.

[Kyle]

This is the answer that is most easily automated, I think. for f in *.txt; do mkdir -p `dirname /destination/${f//regex/repl}`; mv "$f" "/destination/${f//regex/repl}; done

[Mike Murray]

Thanks! This is exactly what I needed to accomplish: mv ./old ./subdir/new where subdir doesn't yet exist

[unixandria]

The function crashes my shell after spamming something about !=: Unary operator expected

[Rufus]

If anyone is getting the error [: too many arguments, convert all all single square brackets to double square brackets. I'm too lazy to find out why that's happening...

[Orestis Kapar]

This answer is more of a note to anyone stumbling upon a specific sub-case of the question. I have had to rethink this solution multiple times after arriving to this exact SO question, so I decided to post it here for future reference. Still, it's possible it doesn't belong here.

[sbolel]

this is exactly what i was looking for!

[pmiguelpinto]

That is not an one-liner.