How to avoid 'are the same file' warning message when using cp in Linux?

Question

I'm trying to copy certain files from one directory to another. Using this command

find "$HOME" -name '*.txt' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 cp -t $HOME/newdir

I get an warning message saying

cp: '/home/me/newdir/logfile.txt' and '/home/me/newdir/logfile.txt' are the same file

How to avoid this warning message?

Answer 1

The problem is that you try to copy a file to itself. You can avoid it by excluding the destination directory from the results of the find command like this:

find "$HOME" -name '*.txt' -type f -not -path "$HOME/newdir/*" -print0 | xargs -0 cp -t "$HOME/newdir" 

Answer 2

try using install instead, this replaces by removing the file first.

install -v target/release/dynnsd-client target/
removed 'target/dynnsd-client'
'target/release/dynnsd-client' -> 'target/dynnsd-client'

and then remove the source files

Answer 3

Make it unique in the process. But this require sorting

find "$HOME" -name '*.txt' -type f -print0 | sort -zu | xargs -0 cp -t "$HOME/newdir"

Or if it's not about the generated files, try to use the -u option of cp.

find "$HOME" -name '*.txt' -type f -print0 | xargs -0 cp -ut "$HOME/newdir"

-u   copy only when the SOURCE file is newer than the destination file or when
     the destination file is missing

Answer 4

install

worked perfectly in a Makefile context with docker - thanks!

copy:  
    @echo ''  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/shell                   .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/docker-compose.yml      .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/statoshi                .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/gui                     .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/$(DOCKERFILE)   .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/$(DOCKERFILE_SLIM)        .'  
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/$(DOCKERFILE_GUI)         .'   
    bash -c 'install -v ./docker/$(DOCKERFILE_EXTRACT) .'  
    @echo ''  

build-shell: copy  
    docker-compose build shell  

Answer 5

Try using rsync instead of cp:

find "$HOME" -name "*.txt" -exec rsync {} "$HOME"/newdir \;