MV(1) | General Commands Manual | MV(1) |
mv | [-fiv] source target |
mv | [-fiv] source ... directory |
In its second form, mv moves each file named by a source operand to a destination file in the existing directory named by the directory operand. The destination path for each operand is the pathname produced by the concatenation of the last operand, a slash, and the final pathname component of the named file.
The following options are available:
The last of any -f or -i options is the one which affects mv's behavior.
It is an error for any of the source operands to specify a nonexistent file or directory.
It is an error for the source operand to specify a directory if the target exists and is not a directory.
If the destination path does not have a mode which permits writing, mv prompts the user for confirmation as specified for the -i option.
Should the rename(2) call fail because source and target are on different file systems, mv will remove the destination file, copy the source file to the destination, and then remove the source. The effect is roughly equivalent to:
rm -f destination_path && \ cp -PRp source_file destination_path && \ rm -rf source_file
The -v option is an extension to IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”).
December 26, 2002 | NetBSD 6.1 |