Chapter 10. Linking, Renaming, and Copying Files
10.1. What's So Complicated About Copying Files
At
first
glance, there doesn't seem to be enough material to
fill an entire chapter with information about linking, moving, and
copying files. However, there are several things that make the topic
more complex (and more interesting) than you might expect:
-
In addition to
moving and copying files, Unix systems also allow you to link
them -- to have two filenames, perhaps in different directories or
even on different filesystems, that point to the same file. Section 10.3 explores the reasons why you want to do
that; Section 10.4 discusses the difference
between "hard" and
"soft" links; Section 10.5 demonstrates how to create links; and other
articles discuss various issues that can come up when using links.
-
It's nontrivial to rename
a group of files all at once, but Unix provides many ways to
circumvent the tedium of renaming files individually. In the chapter
you'll see many different ways to do this, exploring
the variety in the Unix toolbox along the way.
-
In a hierarchical filesystem,
you're sometimes faced with the problem of moving
not only files but entire directory hierarchies from one place to
another. Section 10.12 and Section 10.13 demonstrate two techniques you can use to
perform this task.
-- TOR
| | | 9.28. Keeping find from Searching Networked Filesystem | | 10.2. What's Really in a Directory? |
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