Taken from the [man page](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/precise/en/man1/cp.1.html):

    -n, --no-clobber
                  do not overwrite an existing file (overrides a previous -i option)


Example:

    cp -n myoldfile.txt mycopiedfile.txt

Consider using [`rsync`][1].

    rsync -a -v --ignore-existing src dst


----
As per comments `rsync -a -v src dst` is not correct because it will update existing files.

    
  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync

    cp -n

Is what you want. See the man page.

For people that find that don&#39;t have an &#39;n&#39; option (like me on RedHat) you can use `cp -u` to only write the file if the source is newer than the existing one (or there isn&#39;t an existing one).

[edit] As mentioned in the comments, this will overwrite older files, so isn&#39;t exactly what the OP wanted. Use ceving&#39;s answer for that.

This will work on RedHat:

    false | cp -i source destination 2&gt;/dev/null

*Updating* and *not overwriting* is something different.


**Alpine linux:** Below answer is only for case of single file: in alpine `cp -n` not working (and `false | cp -i ...` too) so solution working in my case that I found is:

    if [ ! -f env.js ]; then cp env.example.js env.js; fi 

In above example if `env.js` file not exists then we copy `env.example.js` to `env.js`.

Some version of cp do not have the *--no-clobber* option. In that case:

      echo n | cp -vipr src/* dst

This works for me
yes n | cp -i src dest

For example, I have a RESTful service called Purchase Service. Should I name my repository:

 1. `purchaserestservice`
 2. `purchase-rest-service`
 3. `purchase_rest_service`
 4. or something else?

What&#39;s the convention? How about in Github? Should public repositories follow some standard?



Is there a naming convention for git repositories?

I’m using AJAX to append data to a `&lt;div&gt;` element, where I fill the `&lt;div&gt;` from JavaScript. How can I append new data to the `&lt;div&gt;` without losing the previous data found in it?

How to append text to a `&lt;div&gt;`?

I want to `cp` a directory but I do not want to overwrite any existing files even it they are older than the copied files. And I want to do it completely noninteractive as this will be a part of a Crontab Bash script. Any ideas?

Linux how to copy but not overwrite?

<p>I want to <code>cp</code> a directory but I do not want to overwrite any existing files even it they are older than the copied files. And I want to do it completely noninteractive as this will be a part of a Crontab Bash script. Any ideas?</p>


I need to search for a PHP variable `$someVar`. However, Grep thinks that I am trying to run a regex and is complaining:

    $ grep -ir &quot;Something Here&quot; * | grep $someVar
    Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
    Try `grep --help&#39; for more information.
    $ grep -ir &quot;Something Here&quot; * | grep &quot;$someVar&quot;
    &lt;&lt;Here it returns all rows with &quot;someVar&quot;, not only those with &quot;$someVar&quot;&gt;&gt;

I don&#39;t see an option for telling grep _not_ to interpret the string as a regex, but to include the `$` as just another string character.

Grep not as a regular expression

In Linux how do I check all folders in a directory and output the name of all directories that are empty to a list.



How to list empty folders in linux

I am using

    mount -o bind /some/directory/here /foo/bar

I want to check `/foo/bar` though with a bash script, and see if its been mounted? If not, then call the above mount command, else do something else. How can I do this?

CentOS is the operating system.

Check if directory mounted with bash

I need to download a file from server to my desktop. (UBUNTU 10.04) I don&#39;t have a web access to the server, just ssh.

If it helps, my OS is Mac OS X and iTerm 2 as a terminal.

How to download a file from server using SSH?

Does anybody know a way to perform a quick fuzzy search from linux console?

Quite often I come accross situation when I need to find a file in a project but I don&#39;t remember the exact filename. In [Sublime text editor][1] I would press Ctrl-P and type a part of the name, which will produce a list of the files to select from. That&#39;s an amazing feature I&#39;m quite happy with. The problem is that in most cases I have to browse a code in a console on remote machines via ssh. So I&#39;m wondering is there a tool similar to &quot;Go Anywhere&quot; feature for Linux console?


  [1]: http://www.sublimetext.com/2

Fuzzy file search in linux console

I use this bash-code to upload files to a remote server, for normal files this works fine:


	for i in `find devel/ -newer $UPLOAD_FILE`
	do
		echo &quot;Upload:&quot; $i
		if [ -d $i ]
		then
			echo &quot;Creating directory&quot; $i
			ssh $USER@$SERVER &quot;cd ${REMOTE_PATH}; mkdir -p $i&quot;
			continue
		fi
		if scp -Cp $i $USER@$SERVER:$REMOTE_PATH/$i
		then
			echo &quot;$i OK&quot;
		else
			echo &quot;$i NOK&quot;
			rm ${UPLOAD_FILE}_tmp
		fi
	done

The only problem is that for files with a space in the name, the for-loop fails, so I replaced the first line like this:

	find devel/ -newer $UPLOAD_FILE | while read i
	do
		echo &quot;Upload:&quot; $i
		if [ -d $i ]
		then
			echo &quot;Creating directory&quot; $i
			ssh $USER@$SERVER &quot;cd ${REMOTE_PATH}; mkdir -p $i&quot;
			continue
		fi
		if scp -Cp $i $USER@$SERVER:$REMOTE_PATH/$i
		then
			echo &quot;$i OK&quot;
		else
			echo &quot;$i NOK&quot;
			rm ${UPLOAD_FILE}_tmp
		fi
	done

For some strange reason, the ssh-command breaks out of the while-loop, therefore the first missing directory is created fine, but all subsequent missing files/directories are ignored.

I guess this has something to do with ssh writing something to stdout which confuses the &quot;read&quot; command. Commenting out the ssh-command makes the loop work as it should.

Does anybody know why this happens and how one can prevent ssh from breaking the while-loop?

ssh breaks out of while-loop in bash

What&#39;s the preferred way to do command substitution in bash?

I&#39;ve always done it like this:

    echo &quot;Hello, `whoami`.&quot;

But recently, I&#39;ve often seen it written like this:

    echo &quot;Hello, $(whoami).&quot;

What&#39;s the preferred syntax, and why? Or are they pretty much interchangeable?

I tend to favor the first, simply because my text editor seems to know what it is, and does syntax highlighting appropriately.

I read [here](http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_03_04.html#sect_03_04_04) that escaped characters act a bit differently in each case, but it&#39;s not clear to me which behavior is preferable, or if it just depends on the situation.

Side question: Is it bad practice to use *both* forms in one script, for example when nesting command substitutions?


Command substitution: backticks or dollar sign / paren enclosed?

How can I concat strings in shell?  Is it just...

    var = &#39;my&#39;;
    var .= &#39;string&#39;;

?

Concat strings in a shell script

I need to copy all `*.jar` files from a directory maintaining the folder structure of the parent directories. How can I do it in UNIX/Linux terminal?  
The command `cp -r *.jar /destination_dir` is not what I am looking for.

Recursive copy of a specific file type maintaining the file structure in Unix/Linux?

I want to copy multiple files from a specific directory once I am in  another directory. To clarify I want to do the following, at once (one command):

    cp ../dir5/dir4/dir3/dir2/file1 .
    cp ../dir5/dir4/dir3/dir2/file2 .
    cp ../dir5/dir4/dir3/dir2/file3 .
    cp ../dir5/dir4/dir3/dir2/file4 .

I can&#39;t use  `cp ../dir5/dir4/dir3/dir2/* .`   because in `dir2` there are `n` files `(n&gt;4)`

By the way, I&#39;m using `bash`.

Thanks.

How to copy multiple files from a different directory using cp?

I have two directories and one is empty.

The first directory has many sub directories with hidden files. When I `cp -r` content from  first directory to the second one, the hidden files gets copied too. Any solutions to escape them?



cp -r without hidden files

I&#39;m working with a CentOS server. I have a folder named `test` located in `/home/server/folder/test`. I need to copy the directory `test` to `/home/server/`. How can I do it?

CentOS: Copy directory to another directory

I am having some issues to copy a folder with files in that folder into another folder. Command `cp -r` doesn&#39;t copy files in the folder.


Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	mnowotka	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Linux	hovanessyan	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Linux	Hans Ginzel	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Linux	bucko	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Linux	Grim...	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Linux	ceving	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Linux	Kamil Kiełczewski	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Linux	Shōgun8	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Linux	CipherXEN	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Linux how to copy but not overwrite?

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How to append text to a `<div>`?

Is there a naming convention for git repositories?

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