Merging two directory trees with same structure, but different contents in Unix

Question

I have two directories with the following structure:

A
|_0
|_1
|_2

B
|_0
|_1
|_2

each 0,1,2 directory contains unique contents. I want all of the contents to simply exist as:

A
|_0
|_1
|_2

Is there a one liner for this? This is simplified, as the directory structure is about 4 layers deep with 16 directories per level...so it's huge.

Is this a temporary merge, or permanent? If temporary, you could use something like unionfs perhaps? — Zoredache, Apr 9 '14 at 19:54
By "unique contents" do you mean all the files in A have different names than in B? If so, a simple recursive copy will suffice, as in: superuser.com/questions/242638/… — coneslayer, Apr 9 '14 at 19:59
Unfortunately I just realized that the files may have the same names, but they certainly have different contents. — Evan, Apr 9 '14 at 20:04

SPRBRN · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-09 19:58:13Z

0

Given enough space, I would copy A to C, then B to C.

mkdir C
cp -rp A/* C
cp -rp B/* C

answered Apr 9 '14 at 19:58

SPRBRN

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Hmmm, the files may have the same name, and If I had fileA and fileA I'd like to have both (perhaps, fileA and fileA.1 or something) – Evan Apr 9 '14 at 20:05

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