Ubuntu – Fastest way to backup a single file

backupfiles

I want to quickly create a backup of a file, by creating a duplicate with a '~' at the end, in terminal. Is there any straight forward single command way of doing this?

Best Answer

Create a shell function

backup() {
   cp ${1} ${1}~
}

Put it in your shell rc file, for bash it is ~/.bashrc. Source .bashrc or start a new shell.

 . ~/.bashrc
 backup youFile

And you have a copy of yourFile.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Restoring a single file with deja-dup without scanning the entire backup archive

I don't have first hand experience with deja-dup, but according to Google it uses duplicity which in turn uses tar for its backup archives. It is the nature of tar that it does not support direct access to files but instead has to scan the archive until it comes across the desired file. There are alternative archive formats such as dar which provide direct file access. So if fast access to single files is a requirement for you, another backup solution might do a better job for you there.

Command-Line – Fastest Way to Create a File from Terminal

This will save you five keypresses relative to touch filename

>filename

but is not the equivalent of touch as it will truncate filename if it exists. The following does what you want

>>filename

but note that it is not equivalent to touch either, as it does not update filename's modification timestamp.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Restoring a single file with deja-dup without scanning the entire backup archive

Command-Line – Fastest Way to Create a File from Terminal

Related Question