Re: Copying a whole subdirectory possible?

[Steve Cooper]

On Fri, Jan 11, 2002 at 05:52:55PM -0800, Tim locke decreed:
> I need to copy a whole subdirectory to another
> subdirectory...possible? (i.e. cp /home/user1/file
> /home/user2/file) as a regular user.
---end quoted text---

For the most accurate reproduction of a directory tree consider using
the tar command:

    tar cf - . | (cd "$1"; tar xvf -)

The command above assumes you want to copy from the working directory to
another that replaces the $1 symbol.

The advantage of tar is that it preserves permissions, links, etc.
perfectly.  cp does not make as perfect a copy.

The attached script is a wrapper for the tar command above that will
prompt to create the target directory, etc.  Caveat - use at your own
risk.  But there's not much to it, and I use it all the time.

Cheers,
Steve

-- 

                  \_O<  \_O<  \_O<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Steve Cooper          Redmond, WA

#!/bin/sh

function yesno()
{
        typeset yn
        echo -n "$1 (y/N)? "
        read yn
        typeset -i b
        if [ "$yn" = "y" -o "$yn" = "Y" -o "$yn" = "yes" ]
        then
                return 0
        else
                return 1
        fi
}

typeset -i nf

if [ $# -ne 1 ]
then
        echo "Usage: tarclone <destination directory>"
        exit 1
fi

if [ ! -d "$1" ]
then
        echo "Destination \"$1\" does not exist"
        if ( yesno "Create it" )
        then
                mkdir "$1"
        else
                exit 2
        fi
fi

nf=$('ls' "$1" | wc -l)
if [ $nf -ne 0 ]
then
        echo "Destination \"$1\" is not empty"
        if ( yesno "Copy anyway" )
        then
                echo "Overwriting \"$1\""
        else
                exit 3
        fi
fi

echo -n "Ready to clone $(pwd) to $1 (y/N)? "
read yn
if [ "$yn" = "y" -o "$yn" = "Y" -o "$yn" = "yes" ]
then
        tar cf - . | (cd "$1"; tar xvf -)
fi