Different `cp -r` behavior on Linux and Mac

README.md

Different cp -r behavior on Linux and Mac

When running the sript above, we see different behavior on Mac and Linux.

On Linux, dir a is copied into dir b

$ bash dircptest.sh
total 0
drwxrwxr-x. 2 vagrant vagrant 21 Mar  7 19:46 a

On Mac, the contents of dir a are copied into dir b

$ bash dircptest.sh
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 timothy  wheel  0 Mar  7 14:55 thing.1

Resolution

To have the same effect on Mac and Linux:

Copy contents

Change line 5 to cp -r a/. b/.

Copy dir

Change line 5 to cp -r a b/.

dircptest.sh

cd /tmp
mkdir a
mkdir b
touch a/thing.1
cp -r a/ b/
ls -l b/
rm -rf /tmp/a/ /tmp/b/

An alternative to the . syntax is

cp -r a/* b/