ok, I'm fine with how to use copy, but looking for advice on whether it's possible to use relative paths with the src and dst parameters with copy command. For example,

cp /some/path/that/is/really/long/here /some/path/that/is/really/long/here/but/even/longer/than/source

Is there any way to tell linux to copy the file/folder to the same beginning path as the src? In psuedo-code:

cp /some/path/that/is/really/long/here ./but/even/longer/than/source

The idea is to cut down on having to type out the long path twice. I realize I could just cd to the folder where the source file is, but I was wondering if there was something simple I was missing. I also realize I could create a variable that contains the path and use that. Thanks for any tips.

no, it needs to be absolute or relative to your current location.

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You could make use of bash brace expansion:which will expand to

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As acid kewpie said, it needs to be a full path or relative to where you are, and then to cut it way down, relative will need to be close for both ends of the copy, otherwise it will still be lengthy.

You can create environment variables, and if this is in a script, that is very important to do. Create the variables to point to the base level, and then off of that base, include the subdirectories which fulfill the entire pathname. In the end, you'll still be using the entire pathname, but that is required.

Same for if it's not a script; if you happen to have very long paths, there either is a common base or some point where the root of the main tree is uniform; I'd suggest setting up an environment variable for that and if there are still lengthy means to get to the sub-directories, then you have further environment variables which get set up based on the root. So when you establish a new root, you can invoke a script to re-establish the lower tree environment variables.

I think the cleanest option is just to cd into the common directory and operate the command from there. You can use (..) subshell brackets so that the change only affects that command. When the subshell exits you'll be back in the directory you started from.