NAME¶

gcp - Advanced command-line file copier

SYNOPSIS¶

gcp [OPTIONS] FILE DEST gcp [OPTIONS] FILE1 [FILE2...] DEST-DIR

DESCRIPTION¶

This manual page documents briefly the gcp command. gcp is a file copier, loosely inspired by cp, but with high level functionalities like:
- transfer progression indication
- continuous copying when there is an issue: it skips the problematic file and goes on
- copy status logging: which files were effectively copied
- name mangling to handle target filesystem limitations (e.g. removing incompatible chars like "?" or "*" on VFAT)
- forced copy serialization: new files to copy are added to a global queue to avoid hard drive head seeks
- transfer list management: gcp can save a list of files to copy and reuse it later
- approximate option compatibility with cp (approximate because the behaviour is not exactly the same, see below)

OPTIONS¶

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (`-'). By default, calling gcp is equivalent to calling gcp --preserve=mode,ownership,timestamps. A summary of options is included below.

General options¶

--version

Show version of program and exit.

-h, --help

Show summary of options.

-r, --recursive

Copy directories recursively.

-L, --dereference

always follow symbolic links in sources

-P, --no-dereference

never follow symbolic links in sources

-f, --force

Overwrite existing files.

--preserve=PRESERVE

Keep specified attributes. Attributes can be mode, ownership and timestamps. When several attributes are passed, they need to be separated by commas. Note that timestamps preservation has some limits, see section LIMITS.

--no-fs-fix

Don't fix file system naming incompatibilities.

--no-progress

Disable progress bar.

-v, --verbose

Display what is being done.

Sources saving¶

--sources-save=SOURCES_SAVE

Save the list of source files in a list named SOURCES_SAVE.

--sources-replace=SOURCES_REPLACE

Save the list of source files in a list named SOURCES_REPLACE and replace it if it already exists.

--sources-load=SOURCES_LOAD

Reuse the list of source file named SOURCES_LOAD.

--sources-del=SOURCES_DEL

Delete the list of source files named SOURCES_DEL.

--sources-list

List the names of source file lists.

--sources-full-list

List the names of source file lists, including their content.

EXIT STATUS¶

The exit status can be:

•

0 if files have been copied correctly or if another instance of gcp is already running and will do the copy.

•

1 if at least one file has not been copied, or if something went wrong.

•

2 if all files have been copied but with some issues

LIMITS¶

Timestamps preservation with --preserve option is limited by the os python module on POSIX systems. Currently, python only returns timestamps in float format, which is a smaller precision than what POSIX provides. Progress on this issue can be seen at http://bugs.python.org/issue11457.

SEE ALSO¶

cp(1).

AUTHOR¶

gcp was written by Jérôme Poisson <goffi@goffi.org>. This manual page was written by Thomas Preud'homme <robotux@celest.fr>, for the Debian project (and may be used by others).