Using cp command in linux shell, how do I copy a whole directory into another directory?

Question

I have a directory, let's say, "work": ~/work/ This directory has some sub-folders (d1, d2...) in it and files in these sub-folders. I want to make a backup copy in the same folder, so it would be like: ~/backup/work/ However, when I use cp -r ./work ./backup the folder "work" is not copied, only its subfoders (so now it's ~/backup/d1 ~/backup/d2...) Any idea how to make it work? I'm quite new to shell, so I'm missing something :)

Answer 1

cp will not create leading directories; when it sees a path that does not exist, it will assume that it shall be the new name of the directory being copied.

Try copying into a directory that already exists: mkdir work first, then cp -r work backup.

Answer 2

Try

rsync -avz ./work ./backup

Answer 3

cp -r ./work/ ./backup/

or

cp -r ./work ./backup/work

Answer 4

[max@localhost ~]$ mkdir aaa
[max@localhost ~]$ cd aaa
[max@localhost aaa]$ touch 1 2 3
[max@localhost aaa]$ mkdir bbb
[max@localhost aaa]$ touch 3 4 5
[max@localhost aaa]$ cd

This is The content of directory aaa

[max@localhost ~]$ ls -l aaa/
total 4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:29 1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:29 2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:29 3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:29 4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:29 5
drwxrwxr-x 2 max max 4096 Oct 19 17:29 bbb

To copy any directory use cp -r or cp -R or cp --recursive command

Here -r, -R, --recursive means copy directories recursively

[max@localhost ~]$ cp -r aaa/ ccc/
[max@localhost ~]$ cd ccc/
[max@localhost ccc]$ ls -l
total 4
-rw-rw-r--  1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:30 1
-rw-rw-r--  1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:30 2
-rw-rw-r--  1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:30 3
-rw-rw-r--  1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:30 4
-rw-rw-r--  1 max max    0 Oct 19 17:30 5
drwxrwxr-x  2 max max 4096 Oct 19 17:30 bbb

Here content of directory aaa is copied to directory ccc including files and sub directory contents.