Copy a Directory Structure with File Names Without Content

copy a directory structure with file names without content

You can use find:

find src/ -type d -exec mkdir -p dest/{} \; \
       -o -type f -exec touch dest/{} \;

Find directory (-d) under (src/) and create (mkdir -p) them under dest/ or (-o) find files (-f) and touch them under dest/.

This will result in:

dest/src/<file-structre>

You can user mv creatively to resolve this issue.

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Other (partial) solution can be achieved with rsync:

rsync -a --filter="-! */" sorce_dir/ target_dir/

The trick here is the --filter=RULE option that excludes (-) everything that is not (!) a directory (*/)

Copy folder structure (without files) from one location to another

You could do something like:

find . -type d > dirs.txt

to create the list of directories, then

xargs mkdir -p < dirs.txt

to create the directories on the destination.

copy directory structure without files

If the target is a relative path your command will get into an infinite loop. Below one doesn't have that problem.

find "$1/." -type d -exec bash -c '
mkdir -p "${@/*\/.\//"$0"/}"' "$2" {} +

• Uses $1/. as the starting point so that /./ marks where source path ends in each path.
• Relies on bash's pattern substitution PE; "${@/*\/.\//"$0"/}" replaces the longest match of */./ with the target path in each member of $@ (i.e paths selected) and expands to the resultant list.
• Abuses $0 a bit but it won't cause any harm.

Handling of positional parameters is left to OP.

how to copy directory structure without actually copying the content into another directory

This worked for me:

import java.io.File;

public class StartCloneFolderOnly {

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {        
        cloneFolder("C:/source",
                "C:/target");       
    }

    public static void cloneFolder(String source, String target) {
        File targetFile = new File(target);
        if (!targetFile.exists()) {
            targetFile.mkdir();
        }
        for (File f : new File(source).listFiles()) {
        if (f.isDirectory()) {
                String append = "/" + f.getName();
                System.out.println("Creating '" + target + append + "': "
                        + new File(target + append).mkdir());
                cloneFolder(source + append, target + append);
            }
        }
    }   
}

How to copy a directory structure but only include certain files (using windows batch files)

You don't mention if it has to be batch only, but if you can use ROBOCOPY, try this:

ROBOCOPY C:\Source C:\Destination data.zip info.txt /E

EDIT: Changed the /S parameter to /E to include empty folders.

Replicate a directory file structure with empty files

From windows vista, robocopy is included in the OS (for previous versions there is a download from Microsoft)

robocopy \mydir \mydir_structure /create /e

/e indicates a recursive copy including empty folders.

/create creates the empty files in the target hierarchy.

Copy folders without files, files without folders, or everything using PowerShell

To copy everything in a folder hierarchie

Copy-Item $source $dest -Recurse -Force

To copy the hierarchie you can try:

$source = "C:\ProdData"
$dest = "C:\TestData"
Copy-Item $source $dest -Filter {PSIsContainer} -Recurse -Force

To flatten a file structure you can try:

$source = "C:\ProdData"
$dest = "C:\TestData"
New-Item $dest -type directory
Get-ChildItem $source -Recurse | `
    Where-Object { $_.PSIsContainer -eq $False } | `
    ForEach-Object {Copy-Item -Path $_.Fullname -Destination $dest -Force} 

Good luck!

Copy whole directory but exclude all folders and subfolders with certain name

Instead of cp, you can use tar with option --exclude to control what you want copied or not.

The full command is:

tar --exclude="outdir" -cvpf - . | (cd TARGET_DIRECTORY; tar -xpf -)

• So any path that contains the "outdir" pattern will be excluded.
• Without the --exclude option, it will copy the entire structure of your current directory under TARGET_DIRECTORY.
• You can replace the . in the first tar by your desired source directory.

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