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macosterminalcp

OS X cp command in Terminal - No such file or directory

this might be one of those days my brain just does not work, or i'm incredibly dumb. i've been trying to copy files (which are actually directories .app, .bundle, etc.) but consistently get an error 'No such file or directory'. i've tried every possible combination of using no / slash, using the file name, using no file name. help! :/

original directory: ~/desktop/directory/file.bundle

destination directory: /library/application\ support/directory

so in otherwords, the file.bundle needs to go in that ^ directory

tried:

# cp $HOME/Desktop/directory/file.bundle /library/application\ support/directory
cp: /Users/airhead/Desktop/directory/file.bundle: No such file or directory

# cp -rf ~/desktop/directory/file.bundle /library/application\ support/directory/ 
cp: /Users/airhead/Desktop//directory/file.bundle: No such file or directory

# cd ~/

# cp -r directory/file.bundle /library/application\ support/directory/file.bundle
cp: /Users/airhead/Desktop/directory/file.bundle: No such file or directory

# cp -Rf $HOME"/directory/file.bundle" "/library/application\ support/directory/"
cp: directory /Library/Application\ Support/directory/ does not exist

additional info:

# ls -la $HOME/Desktop/directory/
ls: /Users/airhead/Desktop/directory/: No such file or directory
Solution

  • Summary of solution:

    directory is neither an existing file nor directory. As it turns out, the real name is directory.1 as revealed by ls -la $HOME/Desktop/.

    The complete working command is

    cp -R $HOME/directory.1/file.bundle /library/application\ support/directory/

    with the -R parameter for recursive copy (compulsory for copying directories).