What does the command "sudo mv home/* *" do?

Question

I know each part of this command.

sudo mv home/* *

• sudo: super-user do, execute with root privileges.
• mv: move a file or directory.
• home/*: argument of mv command. It indicates the content of home directory. The asterisk * is a wildcard that expands to the list of files in the current directory in lexicographic order.

The next argument is the destiny folder. However, I specify an asterisk as destiny directory, and if I execute the command the folder disappear completely. So, what does the * in this case?

Answer 1

Let's say you have /home/userA, /home/userB and /home/userC. Let's further say you're running this in a directory that contains 1.txt, 2.txt, and a directory 3.d.

Under those circumstances, this would expand to:

sudo mv /home/userA /home/userB /home/userC 1.txt 2.txt 3.d

That is to say, both globs are expanded -- the first to the list of entries in /home, an the subject to the list of files in the current working directory -- and the result is everything being moved into the directory 3.d.

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