MOVE — Move files and directories

Synopsis

MOVE [/?] [/A[+|-]drash] [/S[+|-]drash] [/NEW] [/UPDATE] [/FRESHEN] [/OLDSRCDIR[+|-]] [/OLDDESTDIR[+|-]] [/E/N/Q/U/Z[+|-]] Filespecs… Filespec

Options

/?

Display command syntax information.

/A

Select files by attribute.

/S

Recurse into subdirectories.

/E

Do not display non-fatal error messages.

/N

Simulate execution.

/U

Do not display summary information.

/Q

Operate quietly.

/OLDSRCDIR

/NEW

Only move if the target does not exist

/UPDATE

Move if the target is older than the source or the target does not exist

/FRESHEN

Move if the target exists and is older than the source

/OLDSRCDIR

Duplicate quirks of the 16-bit CMD supplied with IBM OS/2 with respect to source names.

/OLDDESTDIR

Duplicate quirks of the 16-bit CMD supplied with IBM OS/2 with respect to the target name.

/Z

Override the read-only attribute on files.

Description

The MOVE command first processes the contents of the CMD_MOVE_INIT environment variable, if it has inherited one, as if it were a command tail, before processing any of the command tails that have been passed to it. This allows one to modify default options globally. (One can use command aliases or wrapper scripts to achieve the same effect.)

The non-option arguments to MOVE comprise a series of source wildcard search specifications, the first to the penultimate arguments, followed by a destination wildcard substutition specificiation. Where there is only the one non-option argument, it is taken to be a source wildcard search specification, and the destination wildcard substitution specification defaults to "*".

The MOVE command moves all files that match the the source wildcard search specifications, to new names determined by applying the destination wildcard substutition specifications.

Each source file is moved to the directory given in the target filespec (or a subdirectory thereof if the /S option is used). Remember that a filename without a directory prefix is in the current directory.

Related commands

COPYPLUS COPYSTD MORE RENAME DEL DESCRIBE TRUENAME TYPE