Linux command to move a directory

Question

My old and new directory have same folders and files inside.

I try:

mv -if old/* new/*

and get error

mv: cannot move `./xxxxxx' to a subdirectory of itself

How can I move it?

This is a perfectly good question that belongs on StackOverflow. Granted, it is a naive mistake - but that's what SO is for; it helps people overcome naivety by allowing them to ask questions and learn from answers. See SO Blog and Podcast #53 (Joel says no question is too simple for Stack Overflow...). — Jonathan Leffler, May 15 '09 at 11:57
But it's not a programming question. Doesn't it belong on ServerFault? — Nick Johnson, May 15 '09 at 11:59
If 'mv' is programming shell, I'll eat my hat (or I would if I had one). — Nick Johnson, May 15 '09 at 23:18
ahh. thanks for all. I should read the rules before posting. — Qooe, May 16 '09 at 05:34
@Nick Johnson: I searched for 'mv' and got 5 pages of answers at 50 answers per page. This one is not out of order. — Jonathan Leffler, May 16 '09 at 05:39
See also: [How do I rename a directory via the command line?](http://askubuntu.com/questions/56326/how-do-i-rename-a-directory-via-the-command-line) — kenorb, Sep 19 '14 at 22:26
'mv -if' is silly, as man mv states: if you specify more than one of -i, -f, -n, only the final one takes effect. It should be just 'mv -i'. — Urhixidur, Jun 08 '16 at 13:34

score 32 · Answer 1 · answered May 15 '09 at 11:43

32

You should use mv -if old/* new/ without the trailing *.

This is because it unrolled to

mv -if old/foo old/bar old/baz new/foo new/bar new/baz

i.e. move everything into new/baz

This is not what you wanted.

answered May 15 '09 at 11:43

alamar

18,729
4
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score 6 · Answer 2 · answered May 16 '09 at 10:11

reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ ls a
11  22  33
reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ ls b
22  33
reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ ls
a  b
reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ mv a/* b
reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ ls a
reef@localhost:/tmp/experiment$ ls b
11  22  33

It works. What are You trying to achieve? Could You please write a short example of what the input data should look like and what the output data should look like? The truth is I have no idea what You are trying to do :) Help me help You.

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 04 '13 at 10:03

4

note that mv a/* b/ don't move files .* (file name start with '.') in a/ to b/

ex:

$ mkdir -p a/d b && touch a/f a/.f a/d/.f
$ mv a/* b/
$ ls -a a/
.  ..  .f

answered Apr 04 '13 at 10:03

Bùi Việt Thành

409
6
10

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 11 '12 at 06:05

Might be you got the answer but above answer is not working for me.... and finally lots of researching I got the answer. (Issue is due to files-ownership)
and just put sudo before the command and its working.... :) Same thing for cp and mv command.

sudo mv -if old/* new/

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 13 '10 at 23:37

If you are copying from an ext2/3/4 file system to a FAT32 file system, and a filename has an invalid character for FAT32 naming conventions, you get this terribly annoying and incorrect as hell error message. How do I know? I wrestled with this bug - yes, it's a KERNEL BUG - for 6 hours before it dawned on me. I thought it was a shell interpreter error, I thought it was an "mv" error - I tried multiple different shells, everything. Try this experiment: on an ext file system, "touch 'a:b'" them "mv" it to a FAT32 file system. Try it, you'll enjoy (hate) the results. The same is true for '<' and '>' (\074 and \076).

Thanks for "man mv" - that's a real big help, don't quit your day job.

Linux command to move a directory

5 Answers5