file copy

: file copy ?-force? ?--? source target
: file copy ?-force? ?--? source ?source ...? targetDir

The first form makes a copy of the file or directory source under the pathname target. If target is an existing directory, then the second form is used. The second form makes a copy inside targetDir of each source file listed. If a directory is specified as a source, then the contents of the directory will be recursively copied into targetDir. Existing files will not be overwritten unless the -force option is specified. When copying within a single filesystem, file copy will copy soft links (i.e. the links themselves are copied, not the things they point to). Trying to overwrite a non-empty directory, overwrite a directory with a file, or a file with a directory will all result in errors even if -force was specified. Arguments are processed in the order specified, halting at the first error, if any. A -- marks the end of switches; the argument following the -- will be treated as a source even if it starts with a -.

Trap: For soft-links this command copies the link and not the file the link refers to. Example:

 # touch a ; ln -s a b
 # ls -l a b
 ... 0 a
 ... 1 b -> a
 # tclsh
 % file copy b c ; exit
 # ls -l a b c
 ... 0 a
 ... 1 b -> a
 ... 1 c -> a

Question: How do I recursively copy from one directory structure to another that already exists?

file copy will not recursively overwrite:

 % file copy -force /home/path1/dirs /home/path2
 % file copy -force /home/path1/dirs /home/path2
 error copying "/home/path1/dirs" to "/home/path2/dirs": file already exists

Contrast with the following UNIX command that does not raise an error:

 # cp -rf /home/path1/dirs/* /home/path2/dirs

[gaoithe]: It was not obvious to me how to properly check for file copy error. One simply catches calls to file copy (same for other file commands such as stat).

if {[catch {file copy -force $sFrom $sTo} sError]} {
   FAIL "file copy failed: err:$sError to:$sTo"
}

See also edit