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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Using cp to copy only new files
Message-ID: <1991Jun06.154553.18453@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 6 Jun 91 15:45:53 GMT
References: <1407@opus.NMSU.Edu> <2620002@hpcc01.HP.COM>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 21

In article <2620002@hpcc01.HP.COM> lthompso@hpcc01.HP.COM (Larry L. Thompson) writes:
>>I would like to run a simple shell program to archive data files from
>>my hard disk to an optical disk.  I would like for the archived files
>>to be directly usable from the archive (i.e. tar is no good).  Hence,
>>what I would like is some way to use the cp command with a qualifier
>>that says don't re-copy files that already exist - only new ones.

>OK this is a two step process. You first need to touch a file somewhere
>that will be used as the reference data for filtering files that are newer
>than itself. 
>find . -newer <filename> -hidden -print | cpio -pudmvx <destination>

Actually, cpio will already do exactly what is desired if you leave
out the -u option.

find . -print |cpio -pudmv dest_dir
 will copy all files except those that are newer or the same age on
the destination directory or where there are restrictive permissions.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us