Copy ./ to subdirectory.

["James Preece" <james@lovingit.co.uk>]

This is probably a simple question but I can't find the answer
anywhere and my friend Google won't search for ./ and 'copy' brings up
all sorts.

Basically, I've got a folder containing various files for a website
(for simplicity lets say it's this):

/mydirectory/index.html
/mydirectory/images/image.gif

I want to make a backup so in the /mydirectory/ folder I do:

cp -r ./ backup

I wanted his to result in:

/mydirectory/index.html
/mydirectory/images/image.gif
/mydirectory/backup/index.html
/mydirectory/backup/images/image.gif

Does that make sense? The error I get is:

cp: cannot copy a directory, `./', into itself, `backup'

Is there a way to have cp ignore the newly created directory? Something like:

cp -r ./ backup --ignore=backup

Any help appreciated. I can work around it by simply making my backup
somewhere else but I would be suprised if it's not possible to do this
somehow.

Kind Regards and many thanks,

James