How to have the cp command create any necessary folders for copying a file to a destination
LinuxBashCpLinux Problem Overview
When copying a file using cp to a folder that may or may not exist, how do I get cp to create the folder if necessary? Here is what I have tried:
[root@file nutch-0.9]# cp -f urls-resume /nosuchdirectory/hi.txt
cp: cannot create regular file `/nosuchdirectory/hi.txt': No such file or directory
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
To expand upon Christian's answer, the only reliable way to do this would be to combine mkdir and cp:
mkdir -p /foo/bar && cp myfile "$_"
As an aside, when you only need to create a single directory in an existing hierarchy, rsync can do it in one operation. I'm quite a fan of rsync as a much more versatile cp replacement, in fact:
rsync -a myfile /foo/bar/ # works if /foo exists but /foo/bar doesn't. bar is created.
Solution 2 - Linux
I didn't know you could do that with cp.
You can do it with mkdir ..
mkdir -p /var/path/to/your/dir
EDIT See lhunath's answer for incorporating cp.
Solution 3 - Linux
mkdir -p `dirname /nosuchdirectory/hi.txt` && cp -r urls-resume /nosuchdirectory/hi.txt
Solution 4 - Linux
One can also use the command find:
find ./ -depth -print | cpio -pvd newdirpathname
Solution 5 - Linux
There is no such option. What you can do is to run mkdir -p before copying the file
I made a very cool script you can use to copy files in locations that doesn't exist
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -d "$2" ]; then
mkdir -p "$2"
fi
cp -R "$1" "$2"
Now just save it, give it permissions and run it using
./cp-improved SOURCE DEST
I put -R option but it's just a draft, I know it can be and you will improve it in many ways. Hope it helps you
Solution 6 - Linux
rsync is work!
#file:
rsync -aqz _vimrc ~/.vimrc
#directory:
rsync -aqz _vim/ ~/.vim
Solution 7 - Linux
cp -Rvn /source/path/* /destination/path/
cp: /destination/path/any.zip: No such file or directory
It will create no existing paths in destination, if path have a source file inside. This dont create empty directories.
A moment ago i've seen xxxxxxxx: No such file or directory, because i run out of free space. without error message.
with ditto:
ditto -V /source/path/* /destination/path
ditto: /destination/path/any.zip: No space left on device
once freed space cp -Rvn /source/path/* /destination/path/ works as expected