Copy folder structure (without files) from one location to another
LinuxFileCopyDirectoryLinux Problem Overview
I want to create a clone of the structure of our multi-terabyte file server. I know that cp --parents can move a file and it's parent structure, but is there any way to copy the directory structure intact?
I want to copy to a linux system and our file server is CIFS mounted there.
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
You could do something like:
find . -type d > dirs.txt
to create the list of directories, then
xargs mkdir -p < dirs.txt
to create the directories on the destination.
Solution 2 - Linux
cd /path/to/directories &&
find . -type d -exec mkdir -p -- /path/to/backup/{} \;
Solution 3 - Linux
Here is a simple solution using rsync:
rsync -av -f"+ */" -f"- *" "$source" "$target"
- one line
- no problems with spaces
- preserve permissions
Solution 4 - Linux
I dunno if you are looking for a solution on Linux. If so, you can try this:
$ mkdir destdir
$ cd sourcedir
$ find . -type d | cpio -pdvm destdir
Solution 5 - Linux
This copy the directories and files attributes, but not the files data:
cp -R --attributes-only SOURCE DEST
Then you can delete the files attributes if you are not interested in them:
find DEST -type f -exec rm {} \;
Solution 6 - Linux
1 line solution:
find . -type d -exec mkdir -p /path/to/copy/directory/tree/{} \;
Solution 7 - Linux
This works:
find ./<SOURCE_DIR>/ -type d | sed 's/\.\/<SOURCE_DIR>//g' | xargs -I {} mkdir -p <DEST_DIR>"/{}"
Just replace SOURCE_DIR and DEST_DIR.
Solution 8 - Linux
The following solution worked well for me in various environments:
sourceDir="some/directory"
targetDir="any/other/directory"
find "$sourceDir" -type d | sed -e "s?$sourceDir?$targetDir?" | xargs mkdir -p
Solution 9 - Linux
This solves even the problem with whitespaces:
In the original/source dir:
find . -type d -exec echo "'{}'" \; > dirs2.txt
then recreate it in the newly created dir:
mkdir -p <../<SOURCEDIR>/dirs2.txt
Solution 10 - Linux
Substitute target_dir
and source_dir
with the appropriate values:
cd target_dir && (cd source_dir; find . -type d ! -name .) | xargs -i mkdir -p "{}"
Tested on OSX+Ubuntu.
Solution 11 - Linux
If you can get access from a Windows machine, you can use xcopy with /T and /E to copy just the folder structure (the /E includes empty folders)
[EDIT!]
This one uses rsync to recreate the directory structure but without the files. http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/05/copying-directory-trees-with-rsync.html
Might actually be better :)
Solution 12 - Linux
A python script from Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy posted on Copy only folders not files?:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os,sys
dirs=[ r for r,s,f in os.walk(".") if r != "."]
for i in dirs:
os.makedirs(os.path.join(sys.argv[1],i))
or from the shell:
python -c 'import os,sys;dirs=[ r for r,s,f in os.walk(".") if r != "."];[os.makedirs(os.path.join(sys.argv[1],i)) for i in dirs]' ~/new_destination
FYI:
Solution 13 - Linux
Another approach is use the tree
which is pretty handy and navigating directory trees based on its strong options. There are options for directory only, exclude empty directories, exclude names with pattern, include only names with pattern, etc. Check out man tree
Advantage: you can edit or review the list, or if you do a lot of scripting and create a batch of empty directories frequently
Approach: create a list of directories using tree
, use that list as an arguments input to mkdir
tree -dfi --noreport > some_dir_file.txt
-dfi
lists only directories, prints full path for each name, makes tree not print the indentation lines,
--noreport
Omits printing of the file and directory report at the end of the tree listing, just to make the output file not contain any fluff
Then go to the destination where you want the empty directories and execute
xargs mkdir < some_dir_file.txt
Solution 14 - Linux
find source/ -type f | rsync -a --exclude-from - source/ target/
Copy dir only with associated permission and ownership
Solution 15 - Linux
Simple way:
for i in `find . -type d`; do mkdir /home/exemplo/$i; done
Solution 16 - Linux
cd oldlocation
find . -type d -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} mkdir -p newlocation/{}
You can also create top directories only:
cd oldlocation
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} mkdir -p newlocation/{}
Solution 17 - Linux
Here is a solution in php that:
- copies the directories (not recursively, only one level)
- preserves permissions
- unlike the rsync solution, is fast even with directories containing thousands of files as it does not even go into the folders
- has no problems with spaces
- should be easy to read and adjust
Create a file like syncDirs.php
with this content:
<?php
foreach (new DirectoryIterator($argv[1]) as $f) {
if($f->isDot() || !$f->isDir()) continue;
mkdir($argv[2].'/'.$f->getFilename(), $f->getPerms());
chown($argv[2].'/'.$f->getFilename(), $f->getOwner());
chgrp($argv[2].'/'.$f->getFilename(), $f->getGroup());
}
Run it as user that has enough rights:
sudo php syncDirs.php /var/source /var/destination