How to force cp to overwrite without confirmation?

Question

I'm trying to use the `cp` command and force an overwrite. I have tried `cp -rf /foo/* /bar`, but I am still prompted to confirm each overwrite.

Answer 1

This is probably caused by cp being already aliased to something like cp -i. Calling cp directly should work:

/bin/cp -rf /foo/* /bar

Another way to get around this is to use the yes command:

yes | cp -rf /foo/* /bar

To verify that cp isn't aliased use the command, which:

which cp