How to have the cp command create any necessary folders for copying a file to a destination?

Question

When copying a file using `cp` to a folder that may or may not exist, how do I get `cp` to create the folder if necessary? Here is what I have tried: <!-- language:none --> [root@file nutch-0.9]# cp -f urls-resume /nosuchdirectory/hi.txt cp: cannot create regular file `/nosuchdirectory/hi.txt': No such file or directory

Answer 1

Well, there's no straightforward way to do what you're describing using "cp" ....

That is for example,

copy "dir1/dir2/file.txt" to /tmp/ , and expect "/tmp/dir1/dir2/file.txt" to be created.

I can however think of another way to do it though using the cpio command.

For example:

$ find . -name "file.txt" | cpio -pmdv /tmp/

/tmp/./dir1/dir2/file.txt <<< OUTPUT GENERATED BY CPIO

317 blocks <<< OUTPUT GENERATED BY CPIO

That works ....