[X-Unix] Copying to multiple directories

[Raoul Armfield]

could you not write a script something along the lines of

cp $1 /Users/joe/Library
cp $1 /Users/bob/Library
...


and name it filecp for instance. then all you have to type is filecp
fileA

as you add users you simply add a line to your script.  This way it is
portable to different computers and you are able to copy any file to
that directory


Raoul  

:-----Original Message-----
:From: Mac OS X Unix [mailto:X-Unix at lists.themacintoshguy.com] 
:On Behalf Of James Bucanek
:Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 10:11 AM
:To: Mac OS X Unix
:Subject: Re: [X-Unix] Copying to multiple directories
:
:Harvey Riekoff wrote on Wednesday, March 10, 2004:
:
:>I need to copy "fileA" to every users library folder in the Users 
:>directory. The file resides at t he root level. The command 
:that I have 
:>been using is: cp -r fileA /Users/*/Library.  There is obviously 
:>something that I am doing wrong because nothing is copying. Any help 
:>would be appreciated.
:
:Harvey,
:
:The cp command's syntax is like this (use 'man ls' for the 
:gory details):
:
:    cp source_file target_file
:    
:- or -
:
:    cp source_file [ source_file2 ...] target_directory
:
:You can either copy one to another file, or you can copy one 
:or more files to a single destination directory.
:
:Remembering Shell Lessons 101, the wildcard globbing is done 
:by the shell, not the tool.  When you use 'cp -r fileA 
:/Users/*/Library' you aren't passing two arguments to the cp 
:command.  You're passing 5: 'cp -r fileA /Users/A/Library 
:/Users/B/Library /Users/C/Library /Users/D/Library'
:
:The cp command gets this, looks at the last argument, sees 
:that it's a directory, and switches into the second mode.  
:That is, it will attempt to copy the first four arguments (one 
:file and three directories) into the last directory.
:
:The -r option is useless.  There is no -r option for the cp command.
:
:If you meant -R, then it would have copyied the entire Library 
:folder of the first three users into the Library folder of the 
:last user.  So you're lucky you used the wrong option!
:
:The solution to your problem is run the cp command once for 
:each destination user.  So you use the commands
:
:    cp fileA /Users/A/Library
:    cp filaA /Users/B/Library
:
:
:    Brian Medley wrote on Wednesday, March 10, 2004:
:    >$ ls -d /Users/*/Library | xargs -I % echo cp fileA %
:    >cp fileA /Users/bpm/Library
:    >cp fileA /Users/jasonp/Library
:    >cp fileA /Users/jmh/Library
:
:Brian's solution does this by using the ls command to list the 
:directory names (echo would had do it too), then pipes this 
:list to xargs.  xargs takes, as input, a list of filenames and 
:executes a command with that list as the arguments.  It's 
:primarily used to repeatedly executed commands with a list of 
:files that too long to fit on one command line, but Brian has 
:used it here with the -l (replace string) option to execute 
:the command once for each input line (i.e. each directory 
:name), replacing the '%' with the directory.  So, xargs takes 
:the input (/Users/A/Library, /Users/B/Library, ...) and 
:inserts that into the template ('echo cp fileA %'), and 
:executes the command once for each.  This results in the output
:
:    cp fileA /Users/bpm/Library
:    cp fileA /Users/jasonp/Library
:    ...
:
:Brian obviously used the 'echo' command as a demonstration.  
:To do the actual copy, you'd omit that and let xargs execute 
:the actual cp command.
:
:A little less obscure solution is to write a loop, although 
:you're more likely to see this solution in a script.
:
:    (this example is in tcsh; bash has a different syntax)
:    [whiterabbit:~] james% foreach i ( /Users/*/Library )
:    foreach? echo cp fileA $i
:    foreach? end
:    cp fileA /Users/james/Library
:    cp fileA /Users/testing/Library
:
:The 'foreach' commands starts a loop that sets the 'i' 
:variable to each argument in the list.  It then executes the 
:subsequent list of commands using a different value for i 
:until the list is exhausted.
:
:And finally,
:
:Harvey Riekoff wrote on Thursday, March 11, 2004:
:>Also when I run the command "$ ls -d /Users/*/Library | xargs 
:-I % echo  
:>cp fileA %"  I get the following message "su: $: Command not found"
:
:The '$' is not part of the command.  It's Brian's bash command 
:prompt.  The command starts with 'ls ...'.
:
:Hope that helps,
:
:James
:
:______________________________________________________
:James Bucanek       <mailto:privatereply at gloaming.com>
:
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