BASH: How to determine whether copying has finished?

Question

I need to copy files from several folders by separate cp commands. How to ensure that every command ended only after what files are actually copied to disk? How can I find out that the copying was finished?

Thanks

Answer 1

If I understand correctly - separate your commands with &&. Like this:

cp -r ./stuff/* ./somewhereelse/ && cp -r ./otherstuff/* ./somewhereelse/ && cp -r ./otherstuff/* ./anotherplace/

The && will ensure the next command is run on success of the previous. You can chain as many commands as you like this way.