Problem copying hidden files with cp

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1

Hi. I’m cleaning off space on my sda drive, so:
I’m backing up my personal home directories from an old 10.3
installation on the the origin drive sda8 to a backup drive sdb where
I’ve made a directory /JOHN103. The command is this, issued in a console
as root user:

Code:

cp -a /mnt/sda8/john/* /mnt/sdb2/JOHN103

That works fine except it doesn’t copy the hidden files. I thought the
“-a” option would copy hidden files, after all “-a”, the archive option,
means “-dpR”.

What am I missing?

Thanks
Swerdna

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2

Maybe 'this ’ (http://tinyurl.com/6nb2ar)may help.
did a quick ‘google’ (http://tinyurl.com/6cnupf) and got loads of hits

Geoff

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x86_64 - KDE 4.182 (release 3.1)

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3

swerdna;1907705 Wrote:
> Hi. I’m cleaning off space on my sda drive, so:
> I’m backing up my personal home directories from an old 10.3
> installation on the the origin drive sda8 to a backup drive sdb where
> I’ve made a directory /JOHN103. The command is this, issued in a console
> as root user:
> >
Code:

> > cp -a /mnt/sda8/john/* /mnt/sdb2/JOHN103

> >
> That works fine except it doesn’t copy the hidden files. I thought
> the “-a” option would copy hidden files, after all “-a”, the archive
> option, means “-dpR”.
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Thanks
> Swerdna

The problems is that the wildcard * only matches non-hidden files.

To get what you want, copy the directory:

Code:

cp -a /mnt/sda8/john/. /mnt/sdb2/JOHN103

Notice the . after john/.

–
ken_yap

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4

From Geoff I hunted down this solution:
shopt -s dotglob
cp -a /mnt/sda8/john/* /mnt/sdb2/JOHN103
shopt -u dotglob
But clearly Ken’s is the way to go.

Thanks guys.

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