Unix: copy files sequentially

Question

As far as I remeber, long time ago I've been using such a thing: in total commander I pressed F2 in copy dialoge - added "copy task" into a "Copy queue". And so, all those files have been copied sequentially. Is there any simple tool for such a "sequential" coping?

Edit: I'd want to add "copy tasks" to the queue dynamicly.

Example: I have lots of heavy files. I understand what I want to copy file A. While file A is coping, I understand that I also must copy file B to somewhere, but I need to start coping it right after A is already copied.

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you mean, that is the default behavior of the copy command (cp):

• Copy many files:

  cp *txt *jpg destination_dir
  

Here are some examples of more complex operations:

1. Copy all files read from a list (assuming sane file names, no spaces or weird characters):

   while read n; do cp $n destination_dir < file_list.txt
   

2. As above but works for file names with spaces or strange characters:

   while IFS= read -r n; do cp "$n" destination_dir < file_list.txt
   

3. Find all files matching a pattern and copy them:

   find . -name "*data*" -exec cp {} destination_dir \;
   

4. As above but works with weird file names:

   find . -print0 -name "*data*" | xargs -0 cp -t destination_dir \;
   

---

I still don't understand why you would want to do this but OK. To add a copy operation to be executed after the current one has ended, you could do this:

1. Create a list of the files you want to copy. Since you start with one file, the list will contain just one file name:

   echo "fileA" > list.txt
   

2. Start copying the file by reading the list (as before, this assumes sane file names, use example 2 from the list above if your file name can contain spaces or strange, non alphanumeric characters):

   while read n; do cp -v $n destination_dir < file_list.txt
   

3. Find the next file you want to copy and add it to the list:

   echo "fileB" >> list.txt
   

As long as you do step 3 before the copying has finished, the next file will be copied as soon as the first one is done.

I just don't understand why you don't simply launch many independent cp commands instead. You are complicating things with no reason as far as I can tell.