Copy directories without files from /etc to other directories

Mario_7626

11/15/23, 7:53 PM

I want to copy all /etc directories without the files inside of them to other directories. There's another condition that they must start with a, b or c just from the first level.

I tried this:

user@system:/etc$ find . -maxdepth 1 -name "[abc]*" -type d -exec cp {} $HOME/bases2/p01 \;

cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './alternatives'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './ca-certificates'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './binfmt.d'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './apt'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cron.monthly'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './chatscripts' 
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './apm'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cups'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cron.d'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './apport'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './alsa'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cracklib'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cron.hourly'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cron.daily'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './acpi'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cron.weekly'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './cupshelpers'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './brltty'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './avahi'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './console-setup'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './bluetooth'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './bash_completion.d'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './chromium.d'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './apparmor.d'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './apparmor'
cp: -r not specified; omitting directory './calendar'

What does mean "-r not specified"? Which would be the correct way?

I'm new here and I'm learning Linux.

1 + 0

command-line

Score:0

Ubuntu

MDeBusk

11/15/23, 11:30 PM

The error "-r not specified" is given by the cp command. You're pointing it to directories that include sub-directories ("-r" is for "recursive") and it won't copy those unless you tell it explicitly to do so with that switch.

To find empty directories, use:

find . –type d -empty

+ 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Copy directories without files from /etc to other directories

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