COPY - Copy files

 Purpose:    Copy data between disks, directories, files, or physical 
             hardware devices (such as your printer or serial port). 
             
 Format:     COPY [/A:[[-]rhsda] /C /E /F /H /K /M /N /P /Q /R /S /T /U /V 
             /X /Z] source [+] ... [/A /B] destination [/A /B] 
             
             source :  A file or list of files or a device to copy from . 
             destination :  A file, directory, or device to copy to . 
             

             /A(SCII)                        /P(rompt) 
             /A: (Attribute select)          /Q(uiet) 
             /B(inary)                       /R(eplace) 
             /C(hanged)                      /S(ubdirectories) 
             /E (no Error messages)          /T(otals) 
             /F(ail on EA error)             /U(update) 
             /H(idden)                       /V(erify) 
             /K(eep attributes)              /X (clear archive) 
             /M(odified)                     /Z (overwrite) 
             /N(othing)                      
 
 See also:  ATTRIB, MOVE, and REN. 

 File Selection 

 Supports extended wildcards, ranges, multiple file names, and include 
 lists.  Date, time, size, or exclude ranges anywhere on the line apply to 
 all source files. 

 Usage 

 The COPY command accepts all traditional syntax and options and adds many 
 new features. 

 The simplest use of COPY is to make a copy of a file, like this example 
 which makes a copy of a file called FILE1.ABC : 

 
         [c:\] copy file1.abc file2.def
 

 You can also copy a file to another drive and/or directory.  The 
 following command copies FILE1 to the \MYDIR directory on drive E: 

 
         [c:\] copy file1 e:\mydir
 

 You can copy several files at once by using wildcards: 

 
         [c:\] copy *.txt e:\mydir
 

 When you COPY files to or from an HPFS drive, you must quote the path 
 name if it contains whitespace or special characters.  See File Names and 
 File Systems for additional details. 

 Copying Files 

 You can copy several files at once by using wildcards: 

 
         [c:\] copy *.txt e:\mydir
 

 You can also list several source files in one command.  The following 
 command copies 3 files from the current directory to the \MYDIR directory 
 on drive E: 

 
         [c:\] copy file1 file2 file3 e:\mydir
 

 COPY also understands include lists, so you can specify several different 
 kinds of files in the same command.  This command copies the .TXT, .DOC, 
 and .BAT files from the E:\MYDIR directory to the root directory of drive 
 A: 

 
         [c:\] copy e:\mydir\*.txt;*.doc;*.bat a:\
 

 If there is only one argument on the line, COPY assumes it is the source, 
 and uses the current drive and directory as the destination.  For 
 example, the following command copies all the .DAT files on drive A to 
 the current directory on drive C: 

 
         [c:\data] copy a:*.dat
 

 If there are two or more arguments on the line, separated by spaces, then 
 COPY assumes that the last argument is the destination and copies all 
 source files to this new location.  If the destination is a drive, 
 directory, or device name then the source files are copied individually 
 to the new location.  If the destination is a file name, the first source 
 file is copied to the destination, and any additional source files are 
 then appended to the new destination file. 

 For example, the first of these commands copies the .DAT files from the 
 current directory on drive A individually to C:\MYDIR (which must already 
 exist as a directory); the second appends all the .DAT files together 
 into one large file called C:\DATA (assuming C:\DATA is not a directory): 
 

 
         [c:\] copy a:*.dat c:\mydir\
         [c:\] copy a:*.dat c:\data
 

 When you copy to a directory, if you add a backslash [\] to the end of 
 the name as shown in the first example above, COPY will display an error 
 message if the name does not refer to an existing directory.  You can use 
 this feature to keep COPY from treating a mistyped destination directory 
 name as a file name and attempting to append all your source files to a 
 destination file, when you really meant to copy them individually to a 
 destination directory. 

 To copy a file to a device such as the printer, use the device name as 
 the destination, for example: 

 
         [c:\] copy schedule.txt prn
 

 To copy text to or from the clipboard use CLIP: as the device name. 
  Using CLIP: with non-text data will produce unpredictable results.  See 
 Redirection for additional information on CLIP:. 

 Appending Files 

 A plus [+] tells COPY to append two or more files to a single destination 
 file.  If you list several source files separated with [+] and don't 
 specify a destination, COPY will use the name of the first source file as 
 the destination, and append each subsequent file to the first file. 

 For example, the following command will append the contents of C:\MEMO2 
 and C:\MEMO3 to C:\MEMO1 and leave the combined contents in the file 
 named C:\MEMO1 : 

 
         [c:\] copy memo1+memo2+memo3
 

 To append the same three files but store the result in BIGMEMO: 

 
         [c:\] copy memo1+memo2+memo3 bigmemo
 

 To append C:\MEM\MEMO2 and C:\MEM\MEMO3 to D:\DATA\MEMO1, and leave the 
 result in C:\MEM\MEMO1 : If no destination is specified, the destination 
 file will always be created in the current directory even if the first 
 source file is in another directory or on another drive.  For example, 
 this command will append C:\MEM\MEMO2 and C:\MEM\MEMO3 to D:\DATA\MEMO1, 
 and leave the result in C:\MEM\MEMO1 : 

 
         [c:\mem] copy d:\data\memo1+memo2+memo3
 

 You cannot append files to a device (such as a printer); if you try to do 
 so, COPY will ignore the [+] signs and copy the files individually.  If 
 you attempt to append several source files to a destination directory or 
 disk, COPY will append the files and place the copy in the new location 
 with the same name as the first source file. 

 Advanced Features 

 If your destination has wildcards in it, COPY will attempt to match them 
 with the source names.  For example, this command copies the .DAT files 
 from drive A to C:\MYDIR and gives the new copies the extension .DX : 

 
         [c:\] copy a:*.dat c:\mydir\*.dx
 

 This feature can give you unexpected results if you use it with multiple 
 source file names.  For example, suppose that drive A contains XYZ.DAT 
 and XYZ.TXT.  The command 

 
         [c:\] copy a:\*.dat a:\*.txt c:\mydir\*.dx
 

 will copy A:XYZ.DAT to C:\MYDIR\XYZ.DX.  Then it will copy A:XYZ.TXT to 
 C:\MYDIR\XYZ.DX, overwriting the first file it copied. 

 COPY also understands include lists, so you can specify several different 
 kinds of files in the same command.  This command copies the .TXT, .DOC, 
 and .BAT files from the E:\MYDIR directory to the root directory of drive 
 A: 

 
         [c:\] copy e:\mydir\*.txt;*.doc;*.bat a:\
 

 You can use date, time, and size ranges to further define the files that 
 you want to copy.  This example copies every file in the E:\MYDIR 
 directory, which was created or modified yesterday, and which is also 
 10,000 bytes or smaller in size, to the root directory of drive A: 

 
         [c:\] copy /[d-1] /[s0,10000] e:\mydir\*.* a:\
 

 You can also use file exclusion ranges to restrict the list of files that 
 would normally be selected with wildcards.  This example copies every 
 file in the E:\MYDIR directory except backup (.BAK or .BK!) files: 

 
         [c:\] copy /[!*.bak;*.bk!] e:\mydir\*.* a:\
 

 COPY will normally process source files which do not have the hidden or 
 system attribute, and will ignore the read-only and archive attributes. 
  It will always set the archive attribute and clear the read-only 
 attribute of destination files.  In addition, if the destination is an 
 existing file with the read-only attribute, COPY will generate an "Access 
 Denied" error and refuse to overwrite the file.  You can alter some of 
 these behaviors with switches: 

    /A:     Forces COPY to process source files with the attributes you 
            specify after the ":", or to process all source files 
            regardless of attributes (if /A: is used by itself). 

    /H      Forces COPY to process hidden and system source files, as well 
            as normal files.  The hidden and system attributes from each 
            source file will be preserved when creating the destination 
            files. 

    /K      Retains the read-only attribute from each source file when 
            creating the destinationfile.  See /K below for a special note 
            if you are running under Novell Netware. 

    /Z      Forces COPY to overwrite an existing read-only destination 
            file. 
 

 Use caution with /A:, /H, or /K when both the source and destination 
 directories contain file descriptions.  If the source file specification 
 matches the description file name (normally DESCRIPT.ION), and you use a 
 switch which tells COPY to process hidden files, the DESCRIPT.ION file 
 itself will be copied, overwriting any existing file descriptions in the 
 destination directory.  For example, if the \DATA directory contains file 
 descriptions this command would overwrite any existing descriptions in 
 the \SAVE directory: 

 
         [c:\data] copy /h d*.* \save\
 

 (If you remove the hidden attribute from the DESCRIPT.ION file the same 
 caution applies even if you do not use /A:, /H, or /K, as DESCRIPT.ION is 
 then treated like any other file.) 

 If you copy a file from a FAT volume to an HPFS volume, and you do not 
 give an explicit destination name (i.e. you are moving the file to the 
 current directory, or your destination name is made up entirely of 
 wildcards), COPY will look for a .LONGNAME extended attribute for the 
 source file.  If it finds that attribute, it will use the long filename 
 for the destination file.  If it does not, it will use the short name. 

 Similarly, if you COPY files with long filenames from an HPFS volume to a 
 FAT volume, CMD.EXE will create the destination files with short, 
 FAT-compatible names and save the long filenames in the .LONGNAME 
 extended attribute.  The short name is created by replacing special 
 characters with underscores, adding numeric digits to the filename (if 
 necessary) to make the new name unique, and truncating the name to fit 
 with in the "8.3" FAT name structure. 

 Options 

 The /A(SCII) and /B(inary) options apply to the preceding filename and to 
 all subsequent filenames on the command line until the file name 
 preceding the next /A or /B, if any.  The other options (/A:, /C, /E, /H, 
 /K, /M, /N, /P, /Q, /R, /S, /T, /U, /V, /X, /Z) apply to all filenames on 
 the command line, no matter where you put them.  For example, either of 
 the following commands could be used to copy a font file to the printer 
 in binary mode: 

 
         [c:\] copy /b myfont.dat prn
         [c:\] copy myfont.dat /b prn
 

 Some options do not make sense in certain contexts, in which case COPY 
 will ignore them.  For example, you cannot prompt before replacing an 
 existing file when the destination is a device such as the printer -- 
 there's no such thing as an "existing file" on the printer.  If you use 
 conflicting output options, like /Q and /P, COPY will generally take a 
 "conservative" approach and give priority to the option which generates 
 more prompts or more information. 

    /A:     (ASCII) If you use /A with a source filename, the file will be 
            copied up to, but not including, the first Ctrl-Z (Control-Z 
            or ASCII 26) character in the file (some application programs 
            use the Ctrl-Z to mark the end of a file).  If you use /A with 
            a destination filename, a Ctrl-Z will be added to the end of 
            the file.  /A is the default when appending files, or when the 
            destination is a device like NUL or PRN, rather than a disk 
            file.  Also see /B. 

    /A::    (Attribute select) Select only those files that have the 
            specified attribute(s) set.  Preceding the attribute character 
            with a hyphen [-] will select files that do not have that 
            attribute set.  The colon [:] after /A is required.  The 
            attributes are: 

               R  Read-only 
               H  Hidden 
               S  System 
               D  Subdirectory 
               A  Archive 
 

 If no attributes are listed at all (e.g., COPY /A: ...), COPY will select 
 all files and subdirectories including hidden and system files.  If 
 attributes are combined, all the specified attributes must match for a 
 file to be selected. For example, /A:RHS will select only those files 
 with all three attributes set. 

 See the cautionary note under Advanced Features above before using /A: 
 when both source and destination directories contain file descriptions. 

 You must include the colon with this option to distinguish it from the 
 /A(SCII) switch, above. /B:(Binary) If you use /B with a source filename, 
 the entire file is copied; Ctrl-Z characters in the file do not affect 
 the copy operation.  Using /B with a destination filename prevents 
 addition of a Ctrl-Z to the end of the destination file.  /B is the 
 default for normal file copies.  Also see /A. /C:(Changed files) Copy 
 files only if the destination file exists and is older than the source 
 (see also /U).  This option is useful for updating the files in one 
 directory from those in another without copying any newly created files. 
 /E:(no Error messages) Suppress all non-fatal error messages, such as 
 "File not found."  Fatal error messages, such as "Drive not ready," will 
 still be displayed.  This option is most useful in batch files and 
 aliases. /F:(Fail on EA error) Fail if the source file has extended 
 attributes and the destination file system doesn't support extended 
 attributes. /H:(Hidden) Copy all matching files including those with the 
 hidden and/or system attribute set. 

 See the cautionary note under Advanced Features above before using /H 
 when both source and destination directories contain file descriptions. 
 /K:(Keep attributes) To maintain compatibility with CMD.EXE, COPY 
 normally maintains the hidden and system attributes, sets the archive 
 attribute, and removes the read-only attribute on the destination file. 
  /K tells COPY to also maintain the read-only attribute on the 
 destination file.  However, if the destination is on a Novell Netware 
 volume, this option will fail to maintain the read-only attribute.  This 
 is due to the way Netware handles file attributes, and is not a problem 
 in COPY. /M:(Modified) Copy only those files with the archive attribute 
 set, i.e., those which have been modified since the last backup.  The 
 archive attribute of the source will not be cleared after copying; to 
 clear it use the /X switch, or use ATTRIB. /N:(Nothing) Do everything 
 except actually perform the copy.  This option is useful for testing what 
 the result of a complex COPY command will be.  /N does not prevent 
 creation of destination subdirectories when it is used with /s. 
 /P:(Prompt) Ask the user to confirm each source file.  Your options at 
 the prompt are explained in detail under Page and File Prompts. 
 /Q:(Quiet) Don't display filenames or the total number of files copied. 
  This option is most often used in batch files.  See also /T. 
 /R:(Replace) Prompt the user before overwriting an existing file.   Your 
 options at the prompt are explained in detail under Page and File 
 Prompts. /S:(Subdirectories) Copy the subdirectory tree starting with the 
 files in the source directory plus each subdirectory below that.  The 
 destination must be a directory; if it doesn't exist, COPY will attempt 
 to create it.  COPY will also attempt to create needed subdirectories on 
 the tree below the destination, including empty source directories.  If 
 COPY /S creates one or more destination directories, they will be added 
 automatically to the extended directory search database. 

 If you attempt to use COPY /S to copy a subdirectory tree into part of 
 itself, COPY will detect the resulting infinite loop, display an error 
 message, and exit. /T:(Totals) Turns off  the display of filenames, like 
 /Q, but does display the total number of files copied. /U:(Update) Copy 
 each source file only if it is newer than a matching destination file or 
 if a matching destination file does not exist (see also /C).  This option 
 is useful for keeping one directory matched with another with a minimum 
 of copying. /V:(Verify) Verify each disk write.  This is the same as 
 executing the VERIFY ON command, but is only active during the COPY.  /V 
 does not read back the file and compare its contents with what was 
 written; it only verifies that the data written to disk is physically 
 readable. /X:Clears the archive attribute from the source file after a 
 successful copy.  This option is most useful if you are using COPY to 
 maintain a set of backup files. /Z:Overwrites read-only destination 
 files.  Without this option, COPY will fail with an "Access denied" error 
 if the destination file has its read-only attribute set.  This option 
 allows COPY to overwrite read-only files without generating any errors.