Copying one file

Sometimes you need to copy a single file. Luckily this is a simple operation on the command line. I have a file named cats.txt in my home directory:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cat cats.txt 
I love cars!
I love cats!
I love penguins!
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$

I can use the cp command to make a copy of cats.txt named copycats.txt as follows:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cp cats.txt copycats.txt 
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cat copycats.txt
I love cars!
I love cats!
I love penguins!
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$

As you can see, the copied file copycats.txt has the same content as the original file cats.txt.

I can also copy the file cats.txt to another directory. For example, I can copy the file cats.txt to /tmp by running the cp cats.txt /tmp command:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cp cats.txt /tmp
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cd /tmp
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/tmp$ ls
cats.txt
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/tmp$

Notice that the copied file has the same name as the original file. I can also make another copy in /tmp with a different name:

elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cp cats.txt /tmp/cats2.txt
elliot@ubuntu-linux:~$ cd /tmp
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/tmp$ ls 
cats2.txt  cats.txt
elliot@ubuntu-linux:/tmp$