Re: copying files

[Alan Chandler <alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tuesday 05 November 2002 12:54 am, Alan Chandler wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 November 2002 12:26 am, Richard Kimber wrote:
> > Is there a program that will copy files from one directory to another,
> > but which will avoid overwriting files with the same name by
> > automatically creating a unique filename in the second directory, or is
> > this
> > something I need to program for myself?
>
> I am making this up as I go along = so its just some random thoughts
>
> assuming two directories like this /base/dir1 and /base/dir2
>
> what about something like this (its not completely correct - it doesn't
> sort out files which already have hard links)
>
> cp -al /base/dir2 /base2
> cp -alf /base/dir1/* /base/dir2
> find /base2/dir2 -depth -type ! d -links 2 -exec rm {} \;
>
> [cp -al makes a copy with hard links, cp -alf merges the two directories
> and where its overwritten a file, the base2 file is left with only one
> link.  The find goes through the base2 directory and removes any files with
> more than one link so that what you are left with there is a list of files
> that were overwritten]

Actually (I don't know if this works) but I might have been too clever above

cp -ab /base/dir1/* /base/dir2

might be the proper way of doing this
[or cp -alfb perhaps]
- -- 
Alan Chandler
alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE9xxjDuFHxcV2FFoIRAvXIAJ4k6KVKIFlKRhBEh5GoR34FPhmPJQCffosM
jrJ0IAhsEp+O+AXWroQjL/Y=
=9nYn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----