question regarding 'copyfile' function from folder to folder

Asked by Yu Li on 4 Aug 2019

Latest activity Commented on by Yu Li on 4 Aug 2019

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Hi:

I tried to use 'coypfile' function from folder to folder.

assuming I have file a.txt, b.txt in folder 'A', and a.txt, b.txt, c.txt in folder 'B', using command: copyfile('A','B'), looks like it has some behaviors below:

it will only not replace folder 'B' with 'A', it seems like copy files in to folder 'A' to folder 'B', i.e. the file 'c.txt' in folder 'B' will not be removed
copyfile will overwrite the files having the same name in folder 'B' by files from folder 'A', i.e. the file 'a.txt' and 'b.txt' in folder 'B' will be overwrite by 'a.txt' and 'b.txt' from folder 'A'

but I could not find any illustration regarding this behavior anywhere, am I correct with the observation described above?

Thanks!

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1 Answer

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Answer by Jan on 4 Aug 2019

Edited by Jan on 4 Aug 2019

Accepted Answer

This is exactly, what you find in the documentation. Please read:

help copyfile
doc copyfile
[SUCCESS,MESSAGE,MESSAGEID] = copyfile(SOURCE, DESTINATION) attempts to
    copy SOURCE to DESTINATION. If SOURCE constitutes a directory or
    multiple files and DESTINATION does not exist, copyfile attempts to
    create DESTINATION as a directory and copy SOURCE to DESTINATION. If
    SOURCE constitutes a directory or multiple files and DESTINATION exists
    as a directory, copyfile attempts to copy SOURCE to DESTINATION.

This means, that copyfile copies the files from the source directory to the destination directory. This sounds intuitive for a function, which is called "copy file".

1 Comment

Yu Li on 4 Aug 2019

Hi Jan:

Thanks for your reply. I read the link below, but looks like it is not as detail as what shows in your answer.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/copyfile.html

Thanks!

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