1mv(1) User Commands mv(1)
2
6 mv - move files
7
9 /usr/bin/mv [-fi] source target_file
10 /usr/bin/mv [-fi] source... target_dir
13 /usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fi] source target_file
16 /usr/xpg4/bin/mv [-fi] source... target_dir
19
22 In the first synopsis form, the mv utility moves the file named by the
23 source operand to the destination specified by the target_file. source
24 and target_file can not have the same name. If target_file does not
25 exist, mv creates a file named target_file. If target_file exists, its
26 contents are overwritten. This first synopsis form is assumed when the
27 final operand does not name an existing directory.
28 In the second synopsis form, mv moves each file named by a source oper‐
31 and to a destination file in the existing directory named by the tar‐
32 get_dir operand. The destination path for each source is the concatena‐
33 tion of the target directory, a single slash character (/), and the
34 last path name component of the source. This second form is assumed
35 when the final operand names an existing directory.
36 If mv determines that the mode of target_file forbids writing, it
39 prints the mode (see chmod(2)), ask for a response, and read the stan‐
40 dard input for one line. If the response is affirmative, the mv occurs,
41 if permissible; otherwise, the command exits. Notice that the mode dis‐
42 played can not fully represent the access permission if target is asso‐
43 ciated with an ACL. When the parent directory of source is writable and
44 has the sticky bit set, one or more of the following conditions must be
45 true:
46 o the user must own the file
48 o the user must own the directory
50 o the file must be writable by the user
52 o the user must be a privileged user
54 If source is a file and target_file is a link to another file with
57 links, the other links remain and target_file becomes a new file.
58 If source and target_file/target_dir are on different file systems, mv
61 copies the source and deletes the original. Any hard links to other
62 files are lost. mv attempts to duplicate the source file characteris‐
63 tics to the target, that is, the owner and group id, permission modes,
64 modification and access times, ACLs, and extended attributes, if appli‐
65 cable. For symbolic links, mv preserves only the owner and group of the
66 link itself.
67 If unable to preserve owner and group id, mv clears S_ISUID and S_ISGID
70 bits in the target. mv prints a diagnostic message to stderr if unable
71 to clear these bits, though the exit code is not affected. mv might be
72 unable to preserve extended attributes if the target file system does
73 not have extended attribute support. /usr/xpg4/bin/mv prints a diagnos‐
74 tic message to stderr for all other failed attempts to duplicate file
75 characteristics. The exit code is not affected.
76 In order to preserve the source file characteristics, users must have
79 the appropriate file access permissions. This includes being super-user
80 or having the same owner id as the destination file.
81
83 The following options are supported:
84 -f mv moves the file(s) without prompting even if it is writing over
86 an existing target. Note that this is the default if the standard
87 input is not a terminal.
88 -i mv prompts for confirmation whenever the move would overwrite an
91 existing target. An affirmative answer means that the move should
92 proceed. Any other answer prevents mv from overwriting the tar‐
93 get.
94 /usr/bin/mv
97 Specifying both the -f and the -i options is not considered an error.
98 The -f option overrides the -i option.
99 /usr/xpg4/bin/mv
101 Specifying both the -f and the -i options is not considered an error.
102 The last option specified determines the behavior of mv.
103
105 The following operands are supported:
106 source A path name of a file or directory to be moved.
108 target_file A new path name for the file or directory being moved.
111 target_dir A path name of an existing directory into which to move
114 the input files.
115
118 See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mv when encoun‐
119 tering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
120
122 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
123 that affect the execution of mv: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE,
124 LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.
125 Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expres‐
128 sion defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the
129 user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines
130 the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character col‐
131 lating elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale
132 specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of
133 sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character
134 classes used in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(5).
135
137 The following exit values are returned:
138 0 All input files were moved successfully.
140 >0 An error occurred.
143
146 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
147 /usr/bin/mv
149 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
150 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
151 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
152 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
153 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
154 │CSI │Enabled │
155 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
156 │Interface Stability │Stable │
157 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
158 /usr/xpg4/bin/mv
160 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
161 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
162 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
163 │Availability │SUNWxcu4 │
164 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
165 │CSI │Enabled │
166 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
167 │Interface Stability │Standard │
168 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
169
171 cp(1), cpio(1), ln(1), rm(1), setfacl(1), chmod(2), attributes(5), env‐
172 iron(5), fsattr(5), largefile(5), standards(5)
173
175 A -- permits the user to mark explicitly the end of any command line
176 options, allowing mv to recognize filename arguments that begin with a
177 -. As an aid to BSD migration, mv accepts - as a synonym for --. This
178 migration aid might disappear in a future release.
179SunOS 5.11 17 Jul 2007 mv(1)