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6.3.1. mv
mv moves a file to another location. A typical
invocation is mv file directory. If the
second argument is a file rather than a directory, mv will rename the
first file, so mv junk spam will change the name of
the file junk to spam. The command is unforgiving: If
you mv a file to the name of a second file that already exists,
that second file will be deleted. For that reason, you must use mv
with caution.
mv can be used to move and rename directories as well as files.
6.3.2. cp
cp copies a file. It has the same syntax as
mv, but leaves the original file in place. cp will
also copy over files without prompting, so it, too, requires
caution. cp -r will copy a directory, its
subdirectories, and its subdirectories' subdirectories recursively.
6.3.4 rm
rm stands for remove; it is used to delete
files. rm -r directory deletes recursively,
just as cp -r copies recursively. However, a separate
command, rmdir, serves to remove empty directories.
In general, it is safer to rm individual files and rmdir
directories, rather than to use rm -r. It is easy to
overlook important files when you delete recursively.
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