issue with find -exec cp

Question

Consider this example:

touch test0
touch timestamp
touch test1
sudo find /var/www/import -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp {} new \;

It actually copies file test1, but it returns the message:

cp: `/var/www/import/new/test1' and `new/test1' are the same file

What am I doing wrong?

2nd question, can I use "+" with this command so that files are copied in a single "bundle"? There are thousands of files!

Solution 1

What am I doing wrong?

That's OK. find finds already copied files in new and tries to copy them again, therefore a warning message is displayed.

can I use "+" with this command so that files are copied in a single "bundle"? There are thousands of files!

Yes, but you need to modify you command this way:

find /var/www/import -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp -t new {} +

because {} must be at the end of exec statement in this case.

Solution 2

Add an echo before the cp and you'll see it's doing

cp new/test1 new
cp test1 new

That's because find doesn't just look in the current directory, it looks in all subdirectories.

Alternatives:

Tell find to not look in subdirectories:

find /var/www/import -maxdepth 1 \
    -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp {} new \;

Tell find to ignore the new subdirectory:

find /var/www/import -type d -name new -prune -o \
    -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp {} new \;

Copy the files into a directory outside of /var/www/import:

find /var/www/import \
    -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp {} /var/www/import.new \;

But if you have subdirectories, you'll end up losing any files that have the same names.

e.g. if you have

test0
test1
scripts/test1

then you'll end up with

test0
test1
new/test1
scripts/test1

which test1 got copied to new?

There's a few ways to handle this, but the easiest and most efficient way I can think of is to use cp --parents

cd /var/www/import
find . -type d -name new -prune -o \
    -type f -iname 'test*' -newer timestamp -exec cp --parents {} new \;

that will give you

test0
test1
new/test1
new/scripts/test1
scripts/test1

Rush already answered the second part of your question, so I won't repeat him.

Comments

[Mikel]

+1 for cp -t. In the example, that warning may be harmless, but Mike said he was really copying thousands of files, so maybe ignoring the errors is a bad idea, because there might be other types of errors that are hard to see.