In its first form, the
mv utility renames the file named by the
source operand to the destination path named by the
target operand. This form is assumed when the last operand does not name an already existing directory.
In its second form,
mv moves each file named by a
source operand to a destination file in the existing directory named by the
directory operand. The destination path for each operand is the pathname produced by the concatenation of the last operand, a slash, and the final pathname component of the named file.
The following options are available:
-f
Do not prompt for confirmation before overwriting the destination path.
-i
Causes mv to write a prompt to standard error before moving a file that would overwrite an existing file. If the response from the standard input begins with the character ``y'', the move is attempted.
-v
Cause mv to be verbose, showing files as they are processed.
The last of any
-f or
-i options is the one which affects
mv's behavior.
It is an error for any of the
source operands to specify a nonexistent file or directory.
It is an error for the
source operand to specify a directory if the
target exists and is not a directory.
If the destination path does not have a mode which permits writing,
mv prompts the user for confirmation as specified for the
-i option.
Should the
rename(2) call fail because
source and
target are on different file systems,
mv will remove the destination file, copy the source file to the destination, and then remove the source. The effect is roughly equivalent to:
rm -f destination_path && \
cp -PRp source_file destination_path && \
rm -rf source_file