mv question

[Allanm]

I have an uninstall script for which I need to move a previous directory ( saved by time stamp ) and need to overwrite it with current directory. So I wrote this command :

mv bin.082307 bin

but it moves the bin.082307 into the current bin directory :

cd bin
ls -lrt
bin.082307

which is what I don't want . I need to overwrite the contents of bin directory with the contents of bin.082307.

Please help.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

Do this:

cd bin.082307
mv * /bin

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Read the man page for mv; it's behaving exactly as documented.

If you first rm -r bin and then mv bin.082307 bin, you will get your desired result.

[Aussan]

mv bin.082307/* bin

[Dennis Handly]

Clay had the right idea but I would use rm -rf
or you could just rename bin/.

>Patrick: cd bin.082307; mv * /bin

(You forgot "../bin".)
This will merge directories, not overwrite.

>Aussan: mv bin.082307/* bin

Same problem as Patrick. Also, if files are readonly you would need to add -f.

But this "merges" not replaces the whole directory.

[Allanm]

I used Patrick/Dennis solution.

Thanks,