Find and copy files

linux copy find
shantanuo picture shantanuo · Mar 9, 2011 · Viewed 263.6k times · Source

Why does the following does not copy the files to the destination folder?

# find /home/shantanu/processed/ -name '*2011*.xml' -exec cp /home/shantanu/tosend {} \;

cp: omitting directory `/home/shantanu/tosend'
cp: omitting directory `/home/shantanu/tosend'
cp: omitting directory `/home/shantanu/tosend'

Answer

malcolmpdx picture malcolmpdx · Mar 9, 2011

If your intent is to copy the found files into /home/shantanu/tosend, you have the order of the arguments to cp reversed:

find /home/shantanu/processed/ -name '*2011*.xml' -exec cp "{}" /home/shantanu/tosend  \;

Please, note: the find command use {} as placeholder for matched file.

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