On a mac, how do you copy a folder with files on the desktop to a subfolder in the directory on my search path?

I'm working with a mac and I'm trying to write a program which involves copying a directory (with the files I need) to either the directory on my search path or a sub-directory in that directory. I've tried a number of commands, but something like /Users/arthur/Desktop/the directory or /Users/arthur/Desktop/directory/file results in an error -- no such file or directory. It is crucial that I be able to do this or --- no program. Please help.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

SRC = '/Users/arthur/Desktop/the directory'
DST = ' /Users/arthur/MATLAB/Area51/YetiImages';

if ~exist(SRC, 'dir')
  error('Source not a directory: "%s"', SRC);
end

if ~exist(DST, 'dir')
  try
    mkdir(DST);
  catch ME
    error('Destination not a directory and could not be created: "%s"', DST);
  end
end

cmd = sprintf('cd ''%s''; find . -depth -print | cpio -pdm ''%s''', SRC, DST);
fprintf('About to start command: "%s"\n', cmd);
try
  [status, result] = system(cmd);
  if status == 0
    fprintf('I think it might have worked!\n');
  else
    fprintf('Something odd happened. System said:\n');
    fprintf('%s\n', result);
  end
catch ME
  fprintf('Something went wrong when executing the command.\n');
end

[Arthur Shapiro]

Thanks for the response, Walter. It ran straight through with no error messages, but the subdirectory in the target directory was not copied to yetiImages. When I tried to copy an individual file in the subdirectory, that also did not copy. I would have thought that this would require a simple solution considering how frequently this has to be done.

[Walter Roberson]

You could also use

cmd = sprintf('cp -R ''%s'' ''%s'', SRC, DST);
system(cmd)

copying directories with potential subdirectories is operating-system specific, especially when you add in the handling of files and directories whose name might happen to begin with '.' . It is common for directories on Mac to have a file whose name begins with '.' as Desktop adds a desktop configuration file to every directory visited (the configuration file contains information about the preferred sort order and icon placement.)

[Arthur Shapiro]

Walter, I'm terribly sorry. After digesting your code, I realized that copying was not there. I added copyfile(SRC,DST) and it worked beautifully. Thank you so much.

[Walter Roberson]

My code does copy. cpio -p copies files, and cp -R copies.

[Arthur Shapiro]

I ran it exactly as you suggested and no files showed up in YetiImages until I added the copyfile command. Since I'm a total novice with MATLAB, I wouldn't presume to suggest why that happened. Also, thanks so much for your add suggestions. I'll try them.