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DESCRIPTION

In its second form, mv moves each file named by a source operand to a destination file in the existing directory named by the directory operand. The destination path for each operand is the pathname produced by the concatenation of the last operand, a slash, and the final pathname component of the named file.

The following options are available:

-f

Do not prompt for confirmation before overwriting the destination path. (The -f option overrides any previous -i or -n options.)

-h

If the target operand is a symbolic link to a directory, do not follow it. This causes the mv utility to rename the file source to the destination path target rather than moving source into the directory referenced by target.

-i

Cause mv to write a prompt to standard error before moving a file that would overwrite an existing file. If the response from the standard input begins with the character ‘y’ or ‘Y’, the move is attempted. (The -i option overrides any previous -f or -n options.)

-n

Do not overwrite an existing file. (The -n option overrides any previous -f or -i options.)

-v

Cause mv to be verbose, showing files after they are moved.

It is an error for the source operand to specify a directory if the target exists and is not a directory.

If the destination path does not have a mode which permits writing, mv prompts the user for confirmation as specified for the -i option.

As the rename(2) call does not work across file systems, mv uses cp(1) and rm(1) to accomplish the move. The effect is equivalent to:

rm -f destination_path && \
cp -pRP source_file destination && \
rm -rf source_file

If mv receives a SIGINFO (see the status argument for stty(1)) signal, the current input and output file will be written to standard error.