What is cp: cannot stat error in Unix, I get this error when trying to copy thing from one folder to another

Question

Hi, I don't know why I get this error. I have the directory called mock, which inside has another 3 directories. I am trying to copy all the items from the mock directory into the projweek directory using the below code.

cp  /mock/* ~/projweek

But I get the below error

cp: cannot stat ‘mock/*’: No such file or directory

any ideas as to why that is?

Answer 1

If your source directory is set in the quotes, then make sure that a * is outside quotes, i.e.

cp "source/"* dest

or

cp "source"/* dest

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