Re: file permissions: setting like another file

[Jason Lunz <j@cc.gatech.edu>]

On Sun, Nov 22, 1998 at  5:39PM -0500, Jameson Burt wrote:
> This is analogous to the touch command that sets the timestamps of one file 
> like another file,
>     touch -r file-template  file-target
> 
> Of course, one can go through machinations like
>    cp -p file-template file-target
>    cp    file-target   file-template
>    mv    file-template file-target
> However, in Linux, what we imagine has often been incorporated into a command,
> slickly.

You're right. :) The command you want is cpio, in pass-through mode. It's
for creating and extracting from backup archives, but -p makes it do both
without actually making an archive file.  You also need the 'a' and 'm'
options, which preserve access and modification times. cpio reads the
filename(s) to use from standard input.

So,

echo foo | cpio -pam /bar

will take the file foo and copy it to /bar, preserving its access times,
permissions, and ownership. 

If you wanted to move an entire directory, you'd do something like:

find /foo | cpio -pamdv /bar

This will create a copy of the /foo directory in /bar, again preserving all
file attributes. The 'd' option tells it to create directories as
necessary, and the 'v' option means "verbose", so it will show you what
it's doing.

As always, "man cpio" explains things more thoroughly than I can.

J