How can I make cp -r copy absolutely all of the files and directories in a directory

Requirements:

• Include hidden files and hidden directories.
• Be one single command with an flag to include the above.
• Not need to rely on pattern matching at all.

My ugly, but working, hack is:

cp -r /etc/skel/* /home/user cp -r /etc/skel/.[^.]* /home/user 

How can I do this all in one command without the pattern matching? What flag do I need to use?

15 Answers

Don't specify the files:

cp -r /etc/skel /home/user

(Note that /home/user must not exist already, or else it will create /home/user/skel.)

Lets say you created the new folder (or are going to create one) and want to copy the files to it after the folder is created

mkdir /home/<new_user> cp -r /etc/skel/. /home/<new_user> 

This will copy all files/folder recursively from /etc/skel in to the already existing folder created on the first line.

The correct means of doing this is to use the -T (--no-target-directory) option, and recursively copy the folders (without trailing slashes, asterisks, etc.), i.e.:

cp -rT /etc/skel /home/user 

This will copy the contents of /etc/skel to /home/user (including hidden files), creating the folder /home/user if it does not exist; however the -T option prevents the contents of /etc/skel from being copied to a new folder /home/user/skel should the folder /home/user exist.

bash itself has a good solution, it has a shell option, You can cp, mv and so on.:

shopt -s dotglob # for considering dot files (turn on dot files) 

and

shopt -u dotglob # for don't considering dot files (turn off dot files) 

Above solution is standard of bash

NOTE:

shopt # without argument show status of all shell options -u # abbrivation of unset -s # abbrivation of set 

Use rsync:

rsync -rtv source_folder/ destination_folder/

rsync is good, but another choice:

cp -a src/ dst/ 

From the main help:

 -a, --archive same as -dR --preserve=all -d same as --no-dereference --preserve=links -R, -r, --recursive copy directories recursively 

The simplest way is:

cp -r /etc/skel/{.,}* /home/user 

The expression {.,}* includes all files and directories (also starting with a dot).

If you don't want use above expression, then you can use the cp property, which is the ability to specify multiple sources for one target folder:

cp -r /etc/skel/* /home/user 

You could use rsync.

rsync -aP ./from/dir/ /some/other/directory/ 

You can even copy over ssh

rsync -aP ./from/dir/ username@remotehost:/some/other/directory/ 

There are various flags you can use: -a, --archive # archive (-rlptgoD)

-r, --recursive -l, --links # copy symlinks as links -p, --perms # preserve permissions -t, --times # preserve times -g, --group # preserve group -o, --owner # preserve owner -D # --devices --specials --delete # Delete extra files You may want to add the -P option to your command. --partial # By default, rsync will delete any partially transferred file if the transfer is interrupted. In some circumstances it is more desirable to keep partially transferred files. Using the --partial option tells rsync to keep the partial file which should make a subsequent transfer of the rest of the file much faster. -P # The -P option is equivalent to --partial --progress. Its purpose is to make it much easier to specify these two options for a long transfer that may be interrupted. 

Rsync man page

If your source and target directory have the same name, even if target directory exists, you can simply type:

cp -R /etc/skel /home/ 

This will copy the /etc/skel directory into /home/, including hidden files and directories.

Eventually, you can copy the directory and rename it in a single line :

cp -R /etc/skel /home/ && mv /home/skel /home/user 

I came here having Googled for a solution to the same problem, then I realized that it's easy to do with find. The advantage it doesn't depend on the shell, or special utilities that may not be installed.

find /etc/skel/ -mindepth 1 -exec cp -r {} /home/username/ \; 

I tried the trick with trailing slash, but that didn't work for me.

Note that there is a command-line trick (works in, at least, sh, bash, and ksh): Just suffix the from directory with a slash. This will pour the contents of the from directory into the to directory (ironically, I had first learned about this trick when using rsync).

Example:

/tmp$ mkdir test_dir1 /tmp$ cd test_dir1/ /tmp/test_dir1$ touch aa /tmp/test_dir1$ touch .bb /tmp/test_dir1$ cd .. /tmp$ mkdir test_dir2 /tmp$ cp -r test_dir1/* test_dir2 /tmp$ ls -1a test_dir2 . .. aa /tmp$ cp -r test_dir1/ test_dir2 /tmp$ ls -1a test_dir2 . .. .bb aa 

My solution for this problem when I have to copy all the files (including . files) to a target directory retaining the permissions is: (overwrite if already exists)

yes | cp -rvp /source/directory /destination/directory/ 

yes is for automatically overwriting destination files, r recursive, v verbose, p retain permissions.

Notice that the source path is not ending with a / (so all the files/directory and . files are copied)

Destination directory ends with / as we are placing contents of the source folder to destination as a whole.

I have seen that cp does not always copy hidden files and if you would like an command that seems to work across all linux/unix dialects you should try using:

cd /etc/skel find | cpio -pdumv /home/user 

To copy files, directories and hidden files from a directory to existing/new directory:

cp -a /etc/skel /home/user 

Copy to current directory:

cp -a /etc/skel/. . 

As of at least K3b 2.0.3, there is a question box that pops up when the directory is added to the project, that ask if you want to include hidden files ... there is also a question that pops up to ask about including links. Nice stuff!