mv(1) User Commands mv(1)NAMEmv - move files
SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/mv [-fi] source target_file
/usr/bin/mv [-fi] source... target_dir
/usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fi] source target_file
/usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fi] source... target_dir
DESCRIPTION
In the first synopsis form, the mv utility moves the file named by the
source operand to the destination specified by the target_file. source
and target_file can not have the same name. If target_file does not
exist, mv creates a file named target_file. If target_file exists, its
contents are overwritten. This first synopsis form is assumed when the
final operand does not name an existing directory.
In the second synopsis form, mv moves each file named by a source oper‐
and to a destination file in the existing directory named by the tar‐
get_dir operand. The destination path for each source is the concatena‐
tion of the target directory, a single slash character (/), and the
last path name component of the source. This second form is assumed
when the final operand names an existing directory.
If mv determines that the mode of target_file forbids writing, it
prints the mode (see chmod(2)), ask for a response, and read the stan‐
dard input for one line. If the response is affirmative, the mv occurs,
if permissible; otherwise, the command exits. Notice that the mode dis‐
played can not fully represent the access permission if target is asso‐
ciated with an ACL. When the parent directory of source is writable and
has the sticky bit set, one or more of the following conditions must be
true:
o the user must own the file
o the user must own the directory
o the file must be writable by the user
o the user must be a privileged user
If source is a file and target_file is a link to another file with
links, the other links remain and target_file becomes a new file.
If source and target_file/target_dir are on different file systems, mv
copies the source and deletes the original. Any hard links to other
files are lost. mv attempts to duplicate the source file characteris‐
tics to the target, that is, the owner and group id, permission modes,
modification and access times, ACLs, and extended attributes, if appli‐
cable. For symbolic links, mv preserves only the owner and group of the
link itself.
If unable to preserve owner and group id, mv clears S_ISUID and S_ISGID
bits in the target. mv prints a diagnostic message to stderr if unable
to clear these bits, though the exit code is not affected. mv might be
unable to preserve extended attributes if the target file system does
not have extended attribute support. /usr/xpg4/bin/mv prints a diagnos‐
tic message to stderr for all other failed attempts to duplicate file
characteristics. The exit code is not affected.
In order to preserve the source file characteristics, users must have
the appropriate file access permissions. This includes being super-user
or having the same owner id as the destination file.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-fmv moves the file(s) without prompting even if it is writing over
an existing target. Note that this is the default if the standard
input is not a terminal.
-imv prompts for confirmation whenever the move would overwrite an
existing target. An affirmative answer means that the move should
proceed. Any other answer prevents mv from overwriting the tar‐
get.
/usr/bin/mv
Specifying both the -f and the -i options is not considered an error.
The -f option overrides the -i option.
/usr/xpg4/bin/mv
Specifying both the -f and the -i options is not considered an error.
The last option specified determines the behavior of mv.
OPERANDS
The following operands are supported:
source A path name of a file or directory to be moved.
target_file A new path name for the file or directory being moved.
target_dir A path name of an existing directory into which to move
the input files.
USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mv when encoun‐
tering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of mv: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expres‐
sion defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the
user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines
the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character col‐
lating elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale
specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of
sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character
classes used in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(5).
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 All input files were moved successfully.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
/usr/bin/mv
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWcs │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │Enabled │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Committed │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
/usr/xpg4/bin/mv
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWxcu4 │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │Enabled │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Standard │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcp(1), cpio(1), ln(1), rm(1), setfacl(1), chmod(2), attributes(5), env‐
iron(5), fsattr(5), largefile(5), standards(5)NOTES
A -- permits the user to mark explicitly the end of any command line
options, allowing mv to recognize filename arguments that begin with a
-. As an aid to BSD migration, mv accepts - as a synonym for --. This
migration aid might disappear in a future release.
SunOS 5.11 17 Jul 2007 mv(1)