copy problem using wildcards

plisken · 11-15-2005, 07:41 AM

I'm come accross a strange problem, well at least I think its strange.
I'm trying to copy a file to a location as follows:

cp FILE /var/www/www.*/public_html/

Now I am in the current dir and the file FILE exists, as do several folders www.domain1.com, www.domains2.com etc, all within /var/www/
Yet this does not work, any ideas?
Obviously, I vcan and did as it happens copy the file to each folder manualy, but thought it would have been nice to do it using the method above.

The error shows:

cp: omitting directory `/var/www/www.domain1.com/public_html/'
cp: omitting directory `/var/www/www.domain2.comk/public_html/'
cp: omitting directory `/var/www/www.othersite.comk/public_html/'
cp: omitting directory `/var/www/www.yetanothersite.com/public_html/'

Thanks in advance...

TruongAn · 11-15-2005, 08:10 AM

There is no problem, copy will ignore directory when it is stated using wildcards.

homey · 11-15-2005, 08:17 AM

Might be just as easy to loop through it...

Code:

for i in `ls /var/www` ; do cp file.txt /var/www/$i ; done

TruongAn · 11-15-2005, 08:18 AM

If you want to use that command, add the -r options behind cp

ethics · 11-15-2005, 08:36 AM

yeah -r for recursive, will conduct the operation to folders in msot commands, cp, rm,

plisken · 11-15-2005, 09:05 AM

using -r in this instance produces really bad results, it strated to copy everything from one www.*/public_html folder to another www.*/public_html folder and seemed to want to go forever...

or perhaps it didn't, though it did take ages and using the -v switch, certainly went through every file within the www.*/public/html dir and beyond...

plisken · 11-15-2005, 09:21 AM

This simply does not work, take this example and then comment or advise please is someone can:

Working in CURRENT dir, create the following folders, www.1, www.2, www.3
We have two files in the CURRENT working dir, named hello.c and hello.o.
Now if I wanted to copy bothe the hello files into the 3 newly created sub dirs, then I would expec to do the following:

cp hello.* www.*/ Tthis don't work as mentioned in my 1st post, so i have tried the following:

cp hello.* www.* This is basically the same as above in this instance.

cp -r hello.* www.*/ This produces the following:

www.1 is empty
www.2 is empty
www.3 contains hello.c, hello.o www.1 and www.2

TruongAn · 11-15-2005, 10:21 AM

From the line which Homey posted, I enhanced it and make a shell script which have worked for your later example.

Code:

Locate=""
abc=""
for Locate in ls -d ./www*
do 
	for abc in ./hello*
	do cp ./$abc ./$Locate
	done
done

Try it out!
It may be so clumsy because this is the first time I wrote a shell script.
So, forgive me if it don't work

TruongAn · 11-16-2005, 01:08 AM

Did my script work?
This is the first time I write a script so I need comments, please post back, PLEASE

BrianK · 11-16-2005, 03:47 AM

I don't think you guys are doing the script correctly... he needs to do this:

cp FILE /var/www/www.*/public_html/

in tcsh:

Code:

foreach f (/var/www/www.*)
    echo $f  # shows progress
    cp FILE $f/public_html  # don't forget the public_html bit
end

the bash version would be the same as homey's post, but don't forget the public_html following the $i

btw: cp does not copy to multiple destinations by design. Wildcards are for sources, there is always only one destination - this is true for most file commands.

spooon · 11-16-2005, 04:35 AM

Yes, wildcards don't work because they get expanded by the shell into separate arguments. So the OP's command will get expanded to this (let's say the wildcards stood for numbers 1 to 3):
cp FILE /var/www/www.1/public_html/ /var/www/www.2/public_html/ /var/www/www.3/public_html/

And then by design cp will try to copy the three things "FILE", "/var/www/www.1/public_html/", and "/var/www/www.2/public_html/" into the last thing "/var/www/www.3/public_html/"!

If you guys want to copy multiple files by wildcards or something, the "mmv" program might be useful.

TruongAn · 11-16-2005, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BrianK
I don't think you guys are doing the script correctly... he needs to do this:

cp FILE /var/www/www.*/public_html/

in tcsh:

Code:

foreach f (/var/www/www.*) echo $f # shows progress cp FILE $f/public_html # don't forget the public_html bit end

the bash version would be the same as homey's post, but don't forget the public_html following the $i

I have tried homey's line but I didn't work.
I tried it with the second example post by plisken

Code:

Working in CURRENT dir, create the following folders, www.1, www.2, www.3
We have two files in the CURRENT working dir, named hello.c and hello.o.
Now if I wanted to copy bothe the hello files into the 3 newly created sub dirs, then I would expec to do the following:

It just copy the file to www.3 dir and ommit other dir