Move files and change ownership at the sametime

Question

On Linux (Debian, Ubuntu Mint...),
Is there any option command or something that I can use to transfer files to another user without having to do :

sudo mv /home/poney/folderfulloffiles /home/unicorn/
sudo chown -R unicorn:unicorn /home/unicorn/folderfulloffiles

Solution 1

Use rsync(1):

rsync \
  --remove-source-files \
  --chown=unicorn:unicorn \
    /home/poney/folderfulloffiles /home/unicorn/

Solution 2

Per @Kevin in the comments below, the --file - |pipe syntax is redundant. So I've removed it.

This can also be done with tar:

sudo tar -C${SRC_DIR} --remove-files --group=unicorn --owner=unicorn -c ./* | 
    sudo tar -C${TGT_DIR} -pvx

Solution 3

s=/home/poney/; f=folderfulloffiles; d=/home/unicorn/ 
sudo mv $s$f $d && sudo chown -R unicorn:unicorn $d$f

About the same length as the other answers, and note since they're all using the same library calls under the hood, they're all doing exactly the same thing -- unless, as Gilles notes, this is on the same filesystem and device, in which case mv is really a rename, which makes it more efficient than rsync or tar.

Comments

[Jenny D]

Thanks @dawud - this is my daily "stuff I didn't know and can't understand how I missed it"

[dawud]

@JennyD you might want to take a look at the usermap and groupmap options as well.

[mikeserv]

But this doesn't mv it, right? Only copies? Or does it mv it?

[dawud]

@mikeserv duly noted, see my edit

[S edwards]

It isn't a : instead of a . when dealing with chown ?

[goldilocks]

Hmmm -- interesting. It's that way in the man page, but I've always used a dot. Looks like they took it out of the GNU man page about a decade ago because it's not POSIX portable. Still works though (with the chown from GNU coreutils on linux), but I'll change that above.

[slm]

chown typically takes both : and ..

[S edwards]

@mikeserv let's make it a codegolf :D

[mikeserv]

@Kiwy, we'd need to do a little eval printf for that, I think.

[Kevin]

Pretty sure the -f - is implied on both ends.

[mikeserv]

@Kevin Not here. Here it's specified.

[Kevin]

Yes, you specified it, but it's not necessary. Your command works fine without the f - part.

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

This solution has the advantage that if the source and the destination are on the same filesystem, the file is moved rather than copied and the original erased.

[Henk Langeveld]

Please split the line and don't make us click on a scroll bar to view the code. Oh, and use shopt -s lithist before you copy and paste code samples from bash history. It really helps :-)

[S edwards]

@HenkLangeveld I disagree, spleeting the line makes less usable and copy/paste not proof, I definitely prefer to scroll, though in this case it is relevant, one liners should stay on one line

[goldilocks]

Yeah, I actually changed it back (all the assignments were on separate lines, I had everything on one), then I decided two lines is reasonable enough here for readability so made it that way. In real life I'd use one or two lines but probably not more than that (doing each assignment separately is more confusing, and using goofy '\' stuff is not necessary for this). @HenkLangeveld: I have no idea what you are referring to WRT shopt -s: I did not copy paste anything from bash history here.

[Henk Langeveld]

@TAFKA'goldilocks' By default, bash does not preserve newlines in history, so most people do not bother with indentation when editing history. shopt -s lithist allows you to copy/paste code snippets with newlines and indentation preserved. I make it a habit to run most code snippets that I post on SE, just to catch the silly mistakes. As for `, in your example, there's no need for that. It looks good this way. Personally I would continue the code after &&` with some indentation on the next line to provide a visible clue of the conditional statement.