XCOPY(DOS) UNIX System V XCOPY(DOS)
Name
xcopy - copies files and directories, including lower level
directories, if they exist
Syntax
xcopy [drive:][path][filename] [drive:][path][filename]
[/a] [/d:date] [/e] [/m] [/p] [/s] [/v] [/w]
Description
The first drive:, path, and filename parameters specify the
source file or directory that you want to copy. The second
drive:, path, and filename parameters specify the target.
You must include at least one of the source parameters. If
you omit the target parameters, xcopy assumes you want to
copy the files to the default directory.
If you do not specify the path option, xcopy uses the
default directory with the default filename, *.*.
The switches are:
/a Copies source files that have their archive bit set.
The switch does not modify the archive bit of the
source file. See attrib for information on how to set
the archive attribute.
/d Copies source files that you modified on or after the
date specified by date. Note that the date format may
vary depending on the country code that you are using.
See date for more information.
/e Copies any subdirectories, even if they are empty. You
must use this switch with the /s switch.
/m Similar to the /a switch in that it copies archived
files only; however, it turns off the archive bit in
the source file. See attrib for information on how to
set the archive attribute.
/p Prompts you with ``(Y/N?)'' to let you confirm whether
you want to create each target file.
/s Copies directories and lower level subdirectories,
unless they are empty. If you omit this switch, xcopy
works within a single directory.
/v Causes xcopy to verify each file as it is written to
the target to make sure that the target files are
identical to the source files.
/w Causes xcopy to wait before it starts copying files.
xcopy displays the following message:
Press any key when ready to start copying files
You must press a key to continue, or press <CTL>c to abort
the xcopy command.
Exit Codes
When correctly written programs exit back to MS-DOS, they
return an exit code: 0 if no error occurred, or a value
greater than zero if there was a problem. This exit code,
which you can test in batch files, lets you ``branch'' to an
error-handling routine in the batch file.
If xcopy encounters an error, it returns one of the
following exit codes:
0 Copy without error
1 No files found to copy
2 <CTL>c entered by user to terminate xcopy
4 Initialization error. There is not enough memory -
invalid drive or command line syntax, file not found,
or path not found.
5 Int 24 error occurred. The user aborted from INT24
error reading or writing disk.
You can test for these codes by using the errorlevel
condition of the batch processing if command.
Examples
Because diskcopy copies disks track by track, it requires
your source and target disks to have the same format. If
you have a disk that contains files in subdirectories and
you want to copy it to a target disk that has a different
format, you must use xcopy. For example, the following
command copies all the files and subdirectories (including
any empty subdirectories) on the disk in drive A to the disk
in drive B:
xcopy a: b: /s /e
The xcopy command may prompt you to specify whether the
target is a file or a directory. If you don't want to
receive this prompt, enter the following command:
copy /b xcopy.exe mcopy.exe
This command creates a new command called mcopy.exe. Now
you can use mcopy the same way you use xcopy, except that
mcopy automatically determines whether the target is a file
or a directory.
mcopy uses the following rules for copying files:
⊕ If the source is a directory, the target is a
directory.
⊕ If the source includes multiple files, the target is a
directory.
⊕ If you append a backslash (\) to the end of the target
name, the target is a directory. For example, the
following command creates the directory a:\workers, if
it doesn't already exist, and copies the file payroll
to it:
xcopy payroll a:\workers\
Notes
xcopy is an external command.
XCOPY(DOS) (printed 8/16/89) XCOPY(DOS)