On Sat, 5 Nov 2011 15:47:20 -0400, Chris wrote: > I'm having difficulty copying a directory tree from my FreeBSD server to > USB storage. The problem is that the tree contains file and folder names > which have spaces, similar to the following:
The thing you're intending to name are properly called directories, not "folders". :-) > ./foo bar/some name.tar.gz > ./foo bar/child dir/some other name.tar.gz > > I've tried various combinations of cp with enclosing the top level > directory in quotations, along with other commands like tar or xargs to no > avail. The problem seems to be with creating the destination directories > and folders, where mkdir/cp terminates with an invalid argument response. That's a typical problem caused by those who put spaces into filenames: Scripting requires more work to do what you intend. I may point you to the following articles that deal with the _result_ of your problem: David A. Wheeler Filenames and Pathnames in Shell: How to do it correctly http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html David A. Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames: Control Characters (such as Newline), Leading Dashes, and Other Problems http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/fixing-unix-linux-filenames.html However, if you _can_, solve the _cause_ of your problem, i. e. educate those who create that kind of trouble-carrying file and directory names _not_ to use spaces! > Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, since I'm pretty much out of them > at this point. The articles should help you to deal with the problem, as they present properly working solutions. Good luck! -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
