CP(1)

📦 version 1.053, in alpine 3.24

💅 cp(1) — the copy-your-stuff manual, bestie edition 🎀

okay so like — this is a page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation section (iykyk, the Perl girlies keep their own man pages ✨), and it's all about cp, the little icon that copies files and/or directories. genuinely one of the most used commands in the whole game, no cap.

🌸 NAME 🌸

cp — copy files and/or directories

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

% cp [-fipv] source_file  target_file
% cp [-fipv] source...  target_dir

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so the cp utility copies the source files/directories over to the target. super simple, main character energy fr fr.

⚠️ important vibe check: if the target is a file, you may only specify one file as the source. that's the rule, periodt.

and like — cp will not copy a file onto itself. it's just not gonna do it. don't ask. 🙈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -f — force copy if possible. and bestie, this is the DEFAULT. you get the force for free 💅
  • -i — prompt for confirmation whenever the copy would overwrite an existing target. like "hey… we're about to clobber this, you sure?" 🫶
  • -p — preserve source file attributes (like modDate) as much as possible onto the target. keeping the lil metadata vibes intact 🌸
  • -v — verbose. it'll echo "cp source target" before the copy is done, so you can watch it happen in real time ⭐

also, and this is lowkey the fun part: specifying both -f and -i is not considered an error. the -f option will override the -i option. so the force just wins, always 🔥

💀 BUGS 💀

cp has no known bugs (slay, we love a clean girl ✨) — but be aware that the current copy mode is binary mode. that's the whole note. that's it. 🍓

🌈 EXIT STATUS 🌈

  • 0 — all sources were copied successfully 🎉
  • 1 — there was error 😭

👑 AUTHOR 👑

brian d foy, <schumacks@att.net>

Copyright © 2023 brian d foy. All rights reserved.

you may use this program under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0.

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 she's documented from perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-02-15 — iconic, timeless, no notes 💜

ok bye, go copy something responsibly 💖
📦 where this page comes from