help with cp to overwrite contents

kitek · 05-01-2012, 12:53 PM

I am using

Code:

cp -Rf source dest

And it still asks me to confirm each file. By looking at man, it looks like I am doing it write. I am trying to copy a directory's contents including sub directory's. There is 100's of files. I must be doing something wrong.

Centos 6.2

MensaWater · 05-01-2012, 01:46 PM

By default cp does NOT prompt for overwrite. If you use the "-i" interactive option it does prompt.

This suggests to me that you likely have cp aliased so that it always adds the -i option.

Type "alias" to see defined aliases and see if cp appears in the list.

To turn off the alias you can run "unalias cp". To turn it off permanently you'd have to find whatever file (typically /etc/bashrc, /etc/bashprofile, $HOME/.bashrc or $HOME/.bash_profile) that sets it and comment out or remove the alias.

kitek · 05-01-2012, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MensaWater

By default cp does NOT prompt for overwrite. If you use the "-i" interactive option it does prompt.

This suggests to me that you likely have cp aliased so that it always adds the -i option.

Type "alias" to see defined aliases and see if cp appears in the list.

To turn off the alias you can run "unalias cp". To turn it off permanently you'd have to find whatever file (typically /etc/bashrc, /etc/bashprofile, $HOME/.bashrc or $HOME/.bash_profile) that sets it and comment out or remove the alias.

That did it. I use very little so I will just unalias it when needed. However, that's good to know though so I know what to do in the future when that needs to be done and with other commands too.

glamiss · 05-01-2012, 02:24 PM

you can also use a backslash in front of a command to use the unaliased version of it, such as \cp, \rm, etc etc