hi there,
I've got a command line question..
I was about to go: sudo mv file destinationdir
when i realised that i could just as well move all of the files from dir a to dir b.
Is there a command or arguement that lets me do this in one?

I'm using kubuntu, so i need the sudo, cos the destination dir is /var/www

thanks for any help offered!

got some issues mixed up here.

First "sudo" is for any operation that requires root access. If you su to root--or just log in as root, then your won't need sudo.

More generally, you only need root access to move files if you do not have write privileges on the target directory.

Assuming you are in your home directory and you have read-write access to all the subdirectories, then you can move **anything** **anywhere** with "mv" or "cp". Same answer if you are in your GUI window manager.

If you are root, you can do the above in ALL directories.

What? You got that backwards, I think but you don't make any sense or you got your terminology all wrong with sudo.

sudo is a way or means to allow or provide a non-root user with special privileges, either perform tasks that only root or simply another user can or has access to without providing such users password.

sudo does not require root access, in simple terms, if I was provided full access given by sudo, I can then run any command root can without using root's password directly. So it's safe to say that using sudo instead of directly logging in as root is a more safe and secure way of handling tasks that need to be done with root's permissions.

I would recommend telling users to setup or use sudo before telling them to simply login as root directly.

How I operate on my own servers, I setup sudo, create some random password for root that I make myself forget and then never logging in as root again, as it's not totally necessary, unless some catastrophic event occurs on the machine.

i think using sudo is the norm on ubuntu/kubuntu, unless you use synaptic. When i installed it there was only one password required, which felt weird, at the time.

what i meant is i need a way to copy files using the command line, and not have to type them all out. Something like this:
sudo mv dir1contents(all) to dir2

I need the sudo because i think the read/write permission for the destination folder are root only. I can't drag files in there with konqueror.

thanks for posting

I think what your after is `sudo mv /path/to/dirA/* /var/www/`

If I move a whole directory and it's contents (files and subdirectories) to a new location, I simply use this along with sudo if root only has permissions in the destination directory:

cd /into/directory/where/folder/resides
sudo mv folder /new/location/or/path/to/move/to

Notice you don't need the slash at the end of the source folder so it moves all of it without having to specify * for the move, etc.