MACOS: cp command fails when using * to look up for all files with certain extension because of quotes?

Question

The following command:

cp "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/Folder/*.dylib" "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/OtherFolder"

Throws the following:

No such file or directory

The following command:

cp "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/Folder/theFile.dylib" "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/OtherFolder"

Copy the file.

The following commands:

cd "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/Folder/"
cp *.dylib "/Users/my.name/Documents/GitHub/OtherFolder"

This leads me to believe this is due to the presence of quotes "...". Same when using '...'. Why is that ? What can I do if the path contains spaces ?

Brad Lanam · Accepted Answer · 2024-06-10 15:35:37Z

1

In a unix shell (bash, zsh, etc.), you can quote any portion of the string (with double quotes or single quotes), you don't have to quote the entire string. e.g.

bll-g7:bll$ mkdir -p $HOME/'dq"'/"sq'"/stuff
bll-g7:bll$ ls -ld $HOME/'dq"'/"sq'"/stuff
drwxr-xr-x 2 bll bll 4096 Jun 10 08:33 /home/bll/dq"/sq'/stuff/

In the case of wild cards, you can do:

cp "/Users/my.name/Documents/folder with space/lib/"*.dylib \
   $HOME/somewhere/

answered Jun 10, 2024 at 15:35

Brad Lanam

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2 Comments

Milan Over a year ago

ok but what is the logic about that ? Why can't wild cards be surrounded by quotes ?

Brad Lanam Over a year ago

When a wild card is quoted, the shell will not expand it, it preserves the character. When you quote something, you want the actual value, not the expansion.

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