I have created two directories in desktop: solid/ and liquid/. Initially liquid/ is empty.
Directory structure:
├── liquid
├── solid
│ ├── rock.txt
│ └── water.txt
I tried to move water.txt to liquid/ but it throws and error.
$ mv water.txt /liquid
mv: cannot move 'water.txt' to '/liquid': Permission denied
How can i fix this?
Following your steps, your Desktop/ folder should look like this:
├── liquid
├── solid
│ ├── rock.txt
│ └── water.txt
There are two major issues causing this behaviour.
Assuming you are currently in solid/ directory, you need to reference the relative path of the liquid/ directory. Since it resides in the same level as the parent directory of water.txt file, you need to use .. (double dots) according to the unix convention. ( for more context read dot definition)
# currently in solid directory
$ pwd
/c/Users/USER/Desktop/solid
# move file to liquid directory ✔
$ mv water.txt ../liquid/
In Unix based systems, directories are typically represented by it's name followed by a front slash /, not the other way around. Ex: music/. In fact, putting / in front of a directory name is prohibited in both Windows and Linux.
Moreover, when the two arguments are in the same directory, mv command interprets it as a rename operation on the first argument.
# git bash thinks /liquid is a file in current directory; rename operation fails ❌
$ mv water.txt /liquid
# git bash thinks liquid to be in upper level; no renaming; move succeeds ✔
$ mv water.txt ../liquid/