Is there a way to make mv create the directory to be moved to if it doesn't exist?
LinuxMacosUnixMkdirMvLinux Problem Overview
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.
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
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 - Linux
mkdir -p `dirname /destination/moved_file_name.txt`
mv /full/path/the/file.txt /destination/moved_file_name.txt
Solution 3 - Linux
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 - Linux
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 - Linux
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.
Solution 6 - Linux
The simpliest way to do that is:
mkdir [directory name] && mv [filename] $_
Let's suppose I downloaded pdf files located in my download directory (~/download
) and I want to move all of them into a directory that doesn't exist (let's say my_PDF
).
I'll type the following command (making sure my current working directory is ~/download
):
mkdir my_PDF && mv *.pdf $_
You can add -p
option to mkdir
if you want to create subdirectories just like this: (supposed I want to create a subdirectory named python
):
mkdir -p my_PDF/python && mv *.pdf $_
Solution 7 - Linux
Making use of the tricks in "Getting the last argument passed to a shell script" we can make a simple shell function that should work no matter how many files you want to move:
# Bash only
mvdir() { mkdir -p "${@: -1}" && mv "$@"; }
# Other shells may need to search for the last argument
mvdir() { for last; do true; done; mkdir -p "$last" && mv "$@"; }
Use the command like this:
mvdir foo.c foo.h ~/some/new/folder/
Solution 8 - Linux
rsync command can do the trick only if the last directory in the destination path doesn't exist, e.g. for the destination path of ~/bar/baz/
if bar
exists but baz
doesn't, then the following command can be used:
rsync -av --remove-source-files foo.c ~/bar/baz/
-a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
--remove-source-files sender removes synchronized files (non-dir)
In this case baz
directory will be created if it doesn't exist. But if both bar
and baz
don't exist rsync will fail:
sending incremental file list
rsync: mkdir "/root/bar/baz" failed: No such file or directory (2)
rsync error: error in file IO (code 11) at main.c(657) [Receiver=3.1.2]
So basically it should be safe to use rsync -av --remove-source-files
as an alias for mv
.
Solution 9 - Linux
The following shell script, perhaps?
#!/bin/sh
if [[ -e $1 ]]
then
if [[ ! -d $2 ]]
then
mkdir --parents $2
fi
fi
mv $1 $2
That's the basic part. You might want to add in a bit to check for arguments, and you may want the behavior to change if the destination exists, or the source directory exists, or doesn't exist (i.e. don't overwrite something that doesn't exist).
Solution 10 - Linux
Sillier, but working way:
mkdir -p $2
rmdir $2
mv $1 $2
Make the directory with mkdir -p including a temporary directory that is shares the destination file name, then remove that file name directory with a simple rmdir, then move your file to its new destination. I think answer using dirname is probably the best though.
Solution 11 - Linux
This will move foo.c
to the new directory baz
with the parent directory bar
.
mv foo.c `mkdir -p ~/bar/baz/ && echo $_`
The -p
option to mkdir
will create intermediate directories as required.
Without -p
all directories in the path prefix must already exist.
Everything inside backticks ``
is executed and the output is returned in-line as part of your command.
Since mkdir
doesn't return anything, only the output of echo $_
will be added to the command.
$_
references the last argument to the previously executed command.
In this case, it will return the path to your new directory (~/bar/baz/
) passed to the mkdir
command.
I unzipped an archive without giving a destination and wanted to move all the files except
demo-app.zip
from my current directory to a new directory called demo-app
. The following line does the trick:
mv `ls -A | grep -v demo-app.zip` `mkdir -p demo-app && echo $_`
ls -A
returns all file names including hidden files (except for the implicit .
and ..
).
The pipe symbol |
is used to pipe the output of the ls
command to grep
(a command-line, plain-text search utility).
The -v
flag directs grep
to find and return all file names excluding demo-app.zip
.
That list of files is added to our command-line as source arguments to the move command mv
. The target argument is the path to the new directory passed to mkdir
referenced using $_
and output using echo
.
Solution 12 - Linux
Based on a comment in another answer, here's my shell function.
# mvp = move + create parents
function mvp () {
source="$1"
target="$2"
target_dir="$(dirname "$target")"
mkdir --parents $target_dir; mv $source $target
}
Include this in .bashrc or similar so you can use it everywhere.
Solution 13 - Linux
Code:
if [[ -e $1 && ! -e $2 ]]; then
mkdir --parents --verbose -- "$(dirname -- "$2")"
fi
mv --verbose -- "$1" "$2"
Example:
arguments: "d1" "d2/sub"
mkdir: created directory 'd2'
renamed 'd1' -> 'd2/sub'
Solution 14 - Linux
((cd src-path && tar --remove-files -cf - files-to-move) | ( cd dst-path && tar -xf -))
Solution 15 - Linux
I frequently stumble upon this issue while bulk moving files to new subdirectories. Ideally, I want to do this:
mv * newdir/
Most of the answers in this thread propose to mkdir
and then mv
, but this results in:
mkdir newdir && mv * newdir
mv: cannot move 'newdir/' to a subdirectory of itself
The problem I face is slightly different in that I want to blanket move everything, and, if I create the new directory before moving then it also tries to move the new directory to itself. So, I work around this by using the parent directory:
mkdir ../newdir && mv * ../newdir && mv ../newdir .
Caveats: Does not work in the root folder (/
).
Solution 16 - Linux
My one string solution:
test -d "/home/newdir/" || mkdir -p "/home/newdir/" && mv /home/test.txt /home/newdir/
Solution 17 - Linux
i accomplished this with the install
command on linux:
root@logstash:# myfile=bash_history.log.2021-02-04.gz ; install -v -p -D $myfile /tmp/a/b/$myfile
bash_history.log.2021-02-04.gz -> /tmp/a/b/bash_history.log.2021-02-04.gz
the only downside being the file permissions are changed:
root@logstash:# ls -lh /tmp/a/b/
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 914 Fev 4 09:11 bash_history.log.2021-02-04.gz
if you dont mind resetting the permission, you can use:
-g, --group=GROUP set group ownership, instead of process' current group
-m, --mode=MODE set permission mode (as in chmod), instead of rwxr-xr-x
-o, --owner=OWNER set ownership (super-user only)
Solution 18 - Linux
There's a lot of conflicting solutions around for this, here's what worked for us:
## ss_mv ##
function ss_mv {
mkdir -p $(dirname "$2") && mv -f "$@"
}
This assumes commands in the following syntax:
ss_mv /var/www/myfile /var/www/newdir/myfile
In this way the directory path /var/www/newdir
is extracted from the 2nd part of the command, and that new directory is then created (it's critical that you use the dirname
tag to avoid myfile
being added to the new directory being created).
Then we go ahead and mv
on the entire string again by using the "$@"
tag.
Solution 19 - Linux
You can even use brace extensions:
mkdir -p directory{1..3}/subdirectory{1..3}/subsubdirectory{1..2}
- which creates 3 directories (directory1, directory2, directory3),
- and in each one of them two subdirectories (subdirectory1, subdirectory2),
- and in each of them two subsubdirectories (subsubdirectory1 and subsubdirectory2).
- and in each one of them two subdirectories (subdirectory1, subdirectory2),
You have to use bash 3.0 or newer.
Solution 20 - Linux
$what=/path/to/file;
$dest=/dest/path;
mkdir -p "$(dirname "$dest")";
mv "$what" "$dest"