How can I copy a single file and maintain directory structure?

Question

How can I do this on the command line?

e.g. copy /dir/another/file to /tmp/ so I have /tmp/dir/another/file

Please edit and provide an example of what you are trying to achieve
My guess is that he wants to copy foo1/bar/cdr/myfile to /dstdir and have it create /dstdir/foo1/bar/cdr/myfile

Colin 't Hart · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-25 14:49:05Z

up vote 7 down vote accepted

cp --parents /dir/another/file /tmp

will do exactly what you want.

answered Jul 25 '12 at 14:49

Colin 't Hart
30619

Cédric Julien · Answer 2 · 2012-07-25 14:43:52Z

up vote 0 down vote

rsync can be a good help for this :

rsync -Ravz my/first/dir/file.txt another_dir

will gave as result

another_dir/my/first/dir/file.txt

answered Jul 25 '12 at 14:43

Cédric Julien
46447

Roland Levillain · Answer 3 · 2012-07-25 15:02:56Z

up vote 0 down vote

You can use tar to preserve paths while copying files:

tar cf - /dir/another/file | (cd /tmp && tar xf -)

answered Jul 25 '12 at 15:02

Roland Levillain
1

3 Answers