Ubuntu – What does “cp: omitting directory” mean

coreutilscpdirectory

I've issued the following command:

sudo cp ~/Transfers/ZendFramework-1.11.4-minimal/library/Zend/* ~/public_html/cmsk.dev/library/

When I do this, I start getting the following messages:

cp: omitting directory `Tag' 
cp: omitting directory `Test' 
cp: omitting directory `Text' 
cp: omitting directory `TimeSync' 
cp: omitting directory `Tool' 
cp: omitting directory `Translate' 
cp: omitting directory `Uri' 
cp: omitting directory `Validate'

and so on…

Why do I get these messages ?

Best Answer

By default, cp copies only the direct files in, and not subdirectories in the directory. The message cp: omitting directory 'directory' warns you that the mentioned directory is not copied.

To do so, specify the -r (or --recursive) option:

sudo cp -r ~/Transfers/ZendFramework-1.11.4-minimal/library/Zend/* ~/public_html/cmsk.dev/library/

The manual page (command: man cp) contains an overview of the available options.

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Ubuntu – What does `ls –author` mean

The Ubuntu manual page for "ls" neither explains what the "author" is and it also does not mention that the option only applies to long format. From a GNU/Hurd man page:

--author List each file's author when producing long format directory listings. In GNU/Hurd, file authors can differ from their owners, but in other operating systems the two are the same.

Example:

ls -l --author
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 rinzwind rinzwind rinzwind 20 2011-06-18 19:33 Desktop

will shows 3 names instead of 2 (owner, group, author).

I found some good information on this on an old mail archive for gnu from 2002 but in Ubuntu it is the same as the user name.

If you need to set 'author' the idea is you create a man page for your function and add an author tag in the man page. Unless you use something other than Ubuntu and actually can set this.

Ubuntu – What does ./ mean

In Unix/linux . means the current directory in your case /etc/mds-1.2-beta4/sana/config/etc/Gapache2. There are also many shortcuts like:

..: parent directory (/etc/mds-1.2-beta4/sana/config/etc/)
~: home folder

So to move all folders and files from /etc/mds-1.2-beta4/sana/config/etc/Gapache2 to /etc/apache2/sites-available, the command will be like this

mv ./* /etc/apache2/sites-available/

UPDATE: This link is a good resource for basic UNIX commands

Best Answer

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