cp

The cp command can be used to upload, download and copy files within BatchX. This command will always use two inputs: a source pattern and a target path. At least one of the must correspond to a BatchX file (start with bx://).

BatchX does not allow replacing local files. If you attempt to download a file with an existent local filename you will obtain the following message: Target file <file> already exists.

In similar way, BatchX won't allow you to replace files within your BatchX filesystem, either when updating or copying a file. If you attempt to replace a file you will get an ALREADY_EXISTS error. To replace a file you will first need to remove it using the bx rm command.

Usage

bx cp [--help] <source> <target>

Parameters and inputs

Parameters

Shorthand	Long version	Description
	--help	Show this help message and exit

Inputs

Input	Description	Required
<source>	Source filepattern	true
<target>	Target path	true

Examples

Upload a file to BatchX

Create a local file with the content "My travelling file"

$ echo "My travelling file" > upload.txt

Upload the file to BatchX using the bx cp command as follows:

$ bx cp upload.txt bx://travelling/upload.txt
traveller.txt [=================================================>] 100 %%

Notice that upload.txt is a local file while the target path is preceded by bx:// which refers to the target path in the BatchX file-system, so this is interpreted as an upload.

You can check by using the bx ls command that the file is indeed there:

$ bx ls travelling
travelling/upload.txt   Mon Dec 16 08:46:10 CET 2019      19 B  david

info

The bx cp command will dynamically create directories in BatchX that haven't been previously created.

Download a file from BatchX

Continuing with the previous example, use the bx cp command to download the file we have just uploaded:

$ bx cp bx://travelling/upload.txt download.txt
upload.txt [=================================================>] 100 %%

Notice noew that the source file is preceded by bx:// __ indicating that the file is stored in BatchX while the target destination download.txt file is the name we want to use to store it locally.

You can check by running the ls command that the file is indeed in your local file-system:

$ ls ll
-rw-r--r--  1 dcrevil dcrevil   19 dic 16 08:44 upload.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 dcrevil dcrevil   19 dic 16 08:53 download.txt

Copy a file within BatchX

Continuing with the previous examples, use the cp command to make a copy of the upload.txt __within the BatchX filesystem.

$ bx cp bx://travelling/upload.txt bx://travelling/copy.txt

Use the ls command to list again the contents of the travelling/ directory.

$ bx ls travelling
travelling/upload.txt   Mon Dec 16 08:46:10 CET 2019      19 B  david
travelling/copy.txt     Mon Dec 16 08:55:40 CET 2019      19 B  david

info

Copying files within the BatchX filesystem will actually not create a new copy of the file. Instead the cp command will create a new reference to the same file.

Directories

In the same way BatchX allows you to operate with individual files, you are also able to copy, download and upload whole directories maintaining their internal structure.

In this example we will upload a directory along with two sub-folders to BatchX.
First, create two local files, one with the content "hello" and other with the content "goodbye".

$ echo hello > hello.txt
$ echo goodbye > goodbye.txt

Create the following directories and move these files to their respective sub-folder.

$ mkdir beatles_songs beatles_songs/hello beatles_songs/goodbye
$ mv hello.txt beatles_songs/hello/
$ mv goodbye.txt  beatles_songs/goodbye/

Your local directory structure should look like this.

$ tree beatles_songs
beatles_songs
├── goodbye
│   └── goodbye.txt
└── hello
    └── hello.txt

2 directories, 2 files

Use the bx cp command to upload the beatles_songs directory to BatchX. This will upload the directory and all its contents.

$ bx cp beatles_songs bx://beatles_songs
beatles_songs [==================================================>] 100 %

You can verify that the internal file structure has been preserved using the bx tree command.

$ bx tree /beatles_songs
beatles_songs
├── goodbye
│   └── goodbye.txt
└── hello
    └── hello.txt

File patterns

Source path can point to a file or folder like we swa in the previous examples, but it can also be a file pattern, that would allow to copy the a set of files (those matching the pattern).

See file pattern examples for more details.