Copy files and directories with “cp” command

With a file manager, we can drag and drop a file from one directory to another, copy and paste files, etc. So why use these old command line programs? The answer is power and flexibility. While it is easy to perform simple file manipulations with a graphical file manager, complicated tasks can be easier with the command line programs. And in Linux, to copy files or directories, you will use the cp command.

Use simple cp

The cp command is quite simple, you call the cp command under the command structure below, the source and destination here may be the name (or path) of the file or directory.

cp source destination

For example, I would copy the install.log file into a second file named install2.log.

About wildcards

These special characters are called wildcards. Using wildcards (which is also known as globbing) allows you to select filenames based on patterns of characters. The table below lists the wildcards and what they select.

Table below lists the most commonly used character classes:

Use cp command with wildcards

Here are some examples using the cp command with wildcards:

• The first example: copy all files/folders in the folder /root to the directory /home

cp * /home

• The second example: copy all files beginning with the install into /home directory

cp install* /home

• The third example: copy files starting with a or d characters

cp [ad]* /home

To show more options, run command below:

cp --help

Conclusion

Using the cp command to make copying in Linux is easy, but very effective in difficult cases that you can not do with graphics management.

(This is an article from my old blog that has been inactive for a long time, I don’t want to throw it away so I will keep it and hope it helps someone).