mv(1)

NAME

mv — move or rename files and directories

SYNOPSIS

mv [-f|-i] [-e extarg] file1 new-file

mv [-f|-i] [-e extarg] file1 [file2 ]... dest-directory

mv [-f|-i] [-e extarg] directory1 [directory2 ]... dest-directory

DESCRIPTION

The mv command moves:

One file (file1) to a new or existing file (new-file).
One or more files (file1, [file2, ...]) to an existing directory (dest-directory).
One or more directory subtrees (directory1, [directory2, ...]) to a new or existing directory (dest-directory).

Moving file1 to new-file is used to rename a file within a directory or to relocate a file within a file system or across different file systems. When the destination is a directory, one or more files are moved into that directory. If two or more files are moved, the destination must be a directory. When moving a single file to a new file, if new-file exists, its contents are destroyed.

If the access permissions of the destination dest-directory or existing destination file new-file forbid writing, mv asks permission to overwrite the file. This is done by printing the mode (see chmod(2) and Access Control Lists below), followed by the first letters of the words yes and no in the language of the current locale, prompting for a response, and reading one line from the standard input. If the response is affirmative and the action is permissible, the operation occurs; if not, the command proceeds to the next source file, if any.

If file1 is a file and new-file is a link to another file with other links, the other links remain and new-file becomes a new file. If file1 is a file with links or a link to a file, the existing file or link remains intact, but the name is changed to new-file which may or may not be in the directory where file1 resided, depending on directory path names used in the mv command. The last access and modification times of the file or files being moved remain unchanged.

Options

mv recognizes the following options:

-f

Perform mv commands without prompting for permission. This option is assumed when the standard input is not a terminal.

-i

Causes mv to write a prompt to standard output before moving a file that would overwrite an existing file. If the response from the standard input is affirmative, the file is moved if permissions allow the move.

-e extarg

Specifies the handling of any extent attributes of the files(s) to be moved. extarg can be one of the following values:

warn

Issue a warning message if extent attributes cannot be preserved, but move the file anyway.

ignore

Do not preserve extent attributes.

force

Do not move the file if the extent attributes cannot be preserved.

If multiple source files are specified with a single target directory, mv will move the files that either do not have extent attributes or that have extent attributes that can be preserved. mv will not move the files if it cannot preserve their extent attributes.

Extent attributes cannot be preserved if the files are being moved to a file system that does not support extent attributes or if that file system has a different block size than the original. If -e is not specified, the default value for extarg is warn.

Access Control Lists (ACLs)

If optional ACL entries are associated with new-file, mv displays a plus sign (+) after the access mode when asking permission to overwrite the file.

If new-file is a new file, it inherits the access control list of file1, altered to reflect any difference in ownership between the two files (see acl(5) and aclv(5)). In JFS file systems, new files created by mv do not inherit their parent directory's default ACL entries (if any), but instead retain their original ACLs. When moving files from a JFS file system to an HFS file system or vice versa, optional ACL entries are lost.

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

LC_CTYPE determines the interpretation of text as single byte and/or multibyte characters.

LANG and LC_CTYPE determine the local language equivalent of y (for yes/no queries).

LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed.

If LC_CTYPE is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of C (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG. If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, mv behaves as if all internationalization variables are set to C. See environ(5).

International Code Set Support

Single character and multibyte character code sets are supported.

EXAMPLES

Rename a file in the current directory:

mv old-filename new-filename 

Rename a directory in the current directory:

mv old-dirname new-dirname 

Rename a file in the current directory whose name starts with a nonprinting control character or a character that is special to the shell, such as - and * (extra care may be required depending on the situation):

mv ./bad-filename new-filename 
mv ./?bad-filename new-filename 
mv ./*bad-filename new-filename 

Move directory sourcedir and its contents to a new location (targetdir) in the file system (upon completion, a subdirectory named sourcedir resides in directory targetdir):

mv sourcedir targetdir 

Move all files and directories (including links) in the current directory to a new location underneath targetdir:

mv * targetdir 

Move all files and directories (including links) in sourcedir to a new location underneath targetdir (sourcedir and targetdir are in separate directory paths):

mv sourcedir/* targetdir 

WARNINGS

If file1 and new-file exist on different file systems, mv copies the file and deletes the original. In this case the mover becomes the owner and any linking relationship with other files is lost. mv cannot carry hard links across file systems. If file1 is a directory, mv copies the entire directory structure onto the destination file system and deletes the original.

mv cannot be used to perform the following operations:

Rename either the current working directory or its parent directory using the . or .. notation.
Rename a directory to a new name identical to the name of a file contained in the same parent directory.

DEPENDENCIES

NFS

Access control lists of networked files are summarized (as returned in st_mode by stat(2)), but not copied to the new file. When using mv on such files, a + is not printed after the mode value when asking for permission to overwrite a file.

AUTHOR

mv was developed by AT&T, the University of California, Berkeley and HP.

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

mv: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3, XPG4, POSIX.2