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Copying Files
Next, let's get some data into our playground. We'll do this by copying a file. Using the cp command, we'll copy the passwd file from the /etc directory to the current work- ing directory:
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp /etc/passwd .
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp /etc/passwd .
Notice how we used the shorthand for the current working directory, the single trailing period. So now if we perform an ls, we will see our file:
[me@linuxbox playground]$ ls -l
total 12
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 2016-01-10 16:40 dir1
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 2016-01-10 16:40 dir2
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 1650 2016-01-10 16:07 passwd
[me@linuxbox playground]$ ls -l
total 12
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 2016-01-10 16:40 dir1
drwxrwxr-x 2 me me 4096 2016-01-10 16:40 dir2
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 1650 2016-01-10 16:07 passwd
Now, just for fun, let's repeat the copy using the “-v” option (verbose) to see what it does:
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp -v /etc/passwd .
`/etc/passwd' -> `./passwd'
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp -v /etc/passwd .
`/etc/passwd' -> `./passwd'
The cp command performed the copy again, but this time displayed a concise message indicating what operation it was performing. Notice that cp overwrote the first copy without any warning. Again this is a case of cp assuming that you know what you’re are doing. To get a warning, we'll include the “-i” (interactive) option:
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp -i /etc/passwd .
cp: overwrite `./passwd'?
[me@linuxbox playground]$ cp -i /etc/passwd .
cp: overwrite `./passwd'?
Responding to the prompt by entering a “y” will cause the file to be overwritten, any other character (for example, “n”) will cause cp to leave the file alone.