mjhjmtu

Sorry if I missed something in the cp manual, but is there a way to copy a file to a directory where there may be a file with the same name? Something like adding a postfix to the name of the copied file if there is a file with the same name on the destination directory. Something like:

ls foo
 file
cp file foo/
ls foo
 file
 file* 

The OS, that I am running, is Ubuntu Gnu/Linux.

Adding a positive integer to the target name if the name is already taken, and also incrementing that integer until a free name is found:

mycp () 
 local source="$1"
 local target="$2"

 local n

 # If the target pathname is a directory, add the source filename
 # the end of it.
 if [ -d "$target" ]; then
 target+="/$(basename "$source")"
 fi

 # Increment n until a free name is found
 # (this may leave n unset if the source filename is free).
 while [ -e "$target$n" ]; do
 n=$(( n + 1 ))
 done

 cp "$source" "$target$n"

Note: This function does not take any other arguments than a source and target pathname. It also assumes that you are using the bash shell.

To "install" it, just run the above code in your shell, or add it to wherever you usually add aliases and functions.

Testing:

$ ls
dir file
$ ls dir/

$ mycp file dir
$ ls dir/
file

$ mycp file dir
$ ls dir/
file file1

$ mycp file dir
$ ls dir/
file file1 file2

You can roll your own function. This will keep adding underscores until there is not a duplicate:

mycp() 
 if [[ -f "$2" ]]; then
 mycp "$1" "$2_"
 else
 cp "$1" "$2"
 fi

Not compatible with passing arguments (e. g. cp -p). The better option is to use cp -n, which will not overwrite an existing file.