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cp ⚬ˢʰ｜Definition｜1st｜20260523112513-00-⌔
cp (Unix)
cp is a shell command for copying files and directories.
If the user has write access to a target file, the command copies the content by opening it in update mode. This preserves the file’s inode instead of creating a new file with default permissions.
The command was part of Version 1 Unix,1 and is specified by POSIX. The implementation from GNU has many additional options beyond the POSIX specification.2 The command is bundled in GNU Core Utilities3 and is available in the EFI shell.4
Printed 2026-06-28.
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Link to original Footnotes
McIlroy, M. D. (1987). A Research Unix reader: annotated excerpts from the Programmer’s Manual, 1971–1986 (PDF) (Technical report). CSTR. Bell Labs. 139. ↩
“GNU Coreutils: cp invocation”. GNU. Archived from the original on 2022-01-26. Retrieved 2015-03-17. ↩
“Cp(1): Copy files/Directories - Linux man page”. Archived from the original on 2022-01-30. Retrieved 2019-01-19. ↩
“EFI Shells and Scripting”. Intel. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2013-09-25. ↩
cp ⚬ˢʰ｜docu｜1st｜20260121001049-00-◊
cp(1) - Linux manual page
Link to original
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