Copy directory hierarchies, create and extract archives. Ditto can preserve ownership / permissions, HFS resource forks and file / folder metadata. Ditto will automatically create the destination folder if it doesn’t yet exist, if the destination does exist and contains files, then ditto will merge them.
Syntax
ditto [options] Source_file Destination_file
ditto [options] Source Destination_folder
ditto -x [options] Source_Archive Destination_folder
ditto -c [options] Source Destination_archive
ditto -h | --help
Where Source = a file, folder or archive.
Options
-c Create an archive at the destination path. The default format is CPIO, unless
-k is given. CPIO archives should be stored in files with names ending in .cpio.
Compressed CPIO archives should be stored in files with names ending in .cpgz.
-j Create compressed CPIO archives, using bzip2(1) compression.
-z Create compressed CPIO archives, using gzip(1) compression.
-k Create or extract from a PKZip archive instead of the default CPIO.
PKZip archives should be stored in filenames ending in .zip.
-v Print a line of output to stderr for each source directory copied.
-V Print a line of output to stderr for every file, symbolic link, and device copied.
-x Extract the archives given as source arguments. The format is assumed to be CPIO,
unless -k is given. Compressed CPIO is automatically handled.
-X When copying one or more source directories, do not descend into directories that
have a different device ID.
-h Print full usage.
--keepParent When creating an archive, embed the parent directory name source in Destination_archive.
--arch arch Thin Universal binaries to the specified architecture.
If multiple --arch options are specified then the resulting destination file
will contain each of the specified architectures (if they are present in the
source file). arch should be specified as "i386", "x86_64", etc.
--bom bom Copy only files, links, devices, and directories that are present in the
specified BOM.
--rsrc Preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data. ditto will store this data in
Carbon-compatible ._ AppleDouble files on filesystems that do not natively
support resource forks. As of Mac OS X 10.4, --rsrc is default behavior.
--norsrc Do not preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data.
If both --norsrc and --rsrc are passed, whichever is passed last will take
precedence. Both options override DITTONORSRC.
Unless explicitly specified, --norsrc also implies --noextattr and --noacl
to match the behavior of Mac OS X 10.4.
--extattr Preserve extended attributes (requires --rsrc).
As of Mac OS X 10.5, --extattr is the default.
--noextattr Do not preserve extended attributes (requires --norsrc).
--qtn Preserve quarantine information. As of Mac OS X 10.5, --qtn is the default.
--noqtn Do not preserve quarantine information.
--acl Preserve Access Control Lists (ACLs). As of Mac OS X 10.5, --acl is the default.
--noacl Do not preserve ACLs.
--nocache Do not perform copies using the Mac OS X Unified Buffer Cache.
Files read and written will not be cached, although if the file is
already present in the cache, the cached information will be used.
--hfsCompression
When copying files or extracting content from an archive, if the destination is
an HFS+ volume that supports compression, all the content will be compressed if
appropriate. This is only supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and is only
intended to be used in installation and backup scenarios that involve system files.
Since files using HFS+ compression are not readable on versions of Mac OS X earlier
than 10.6, this flag should not be used when dealing with non-system files or other
user-generated content that will be used on a version of Mac OS X earlier than 10.6.
--nohfsCompression
Do not compress files with HFS+ compression when copying or extracting content
from an archive unless the content is already compressed with HFS+ compression.
Supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later. --nohfsCompression is the default.
--preserveHFSCompression
When copying files to an HFS+ volume that supports compression, ditto will preserve
the compression of any source files that were using HFS+ compression.
Supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later. --preserveHFSCompression is the default.
--nopreserveHFSCompression
Do not preserve HFS+ compression when copying files that are already compressed
with HFS+ compression. Supported on Mac OS X 10.6 or later.
--sequesterRsrc
When creating a PKZip archive, preserve resource forks and HFS meta-data in the
subdirectory __MACOSX. PKZip extraction will automatically find these resources.
--zlibCompressionLevel num
Sets the compression level to use when creating a PKZip archive. The compression
level can be set from 0 to 9, where 0 represents no compression, and 9 represents
optimal (slowest) compression.
By default, ditto will use the default compression level as defined by zlib.
--password When extracting a password-encrypted ZIP archive, you must specify --password to
allow ditto to prompt for a password to use to extract the contents of the file.
If this option is not provided, and a password-encrypted file is encountered,
ditto will emit an error message.
--persistRootless
If a file being replaced has the SF_RESTRICTED flag or the com.apple.rootless extended
attribute set, retain it even if the src file may not have had the same flag or attribute.
--nopersistRootless
Do not persist the SF_RESTRICTED flag or the com.apple.rootless extended attribute
for files being replaced.
--nonAtomicCopies
Do not perform atomic copies when replacing existing files. By default ditto will
atomically swap new files into place when completing a copy.
--segmentLargeFiles
When copying files to a CPIO archive, segment files larger than 8 gigabytes into
multiple entries.
--keepBinaries
When copying files ditto will set aside the original Mach-O binary when it is being
replaced. The file name will be changed to a random number preceeded by the prefix .BC.T_
--keepBinariesList path
When ditto keeps binary files it will record the location of the kept file in the
file at the specified path.
--keepBinariesPattern regex
Keep any regular file that matches the specified regular expression.
Note that this file must not be a Mach-O binary.
--lang lang When copying files with an index bom specified via -b option the user can specify
language variants to filter from the index bom. By default ditto will create
a new index bom at /tmp/ditto.XXXXX representing the filtered contents.
You can direct the output bom via the -o flag.
--outBom bom Specify an explicit path for the output bom.
This bom will only be created if the -o flag or the -l flags are used.
--option key=value
Specify an arbitrary key value pair to be passed to the copier.
The value can be a string, boolean, or integer.
Booleans can be specified as 'true', 'false', 'yes', or 'no'.
Unlike cp -R, if the destination folder already exists, the existing contents will be merged with the contents of the folder being copied.
Use --keepParent for non-archive copies to alleviate this issue.
Copy a folder, notice that quotes are needed because of the space in the folder name. This will merge the files into the destination:
ditto "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
To also preserve the Mac HFS resource forks, type and creator codes (only required prior to 10.4):
ditto -rsrc "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
Don’t copy metadata and HFS resource forks:
ditto -V --norsrc "~/Desktop/work files" "/Volumes/work backup"
Copy Scripts, skipping any resources or meta-data, to rhost:
ditto -c --norsrc Scripts -|ssh rhost ditto -x --norsrc - ./Scripts
List the files in the CPIO archive archive.cpio:
pax -f archive.cpio
List the files in the compressed CPIO archive archive.cpgz:
pax -zf archive.cpgz
Create a PKZip archive similarly to the Finder’s Compress functionality:
ditto -c -k --sequesterRsrc --keepParent src_directory archive.zip
List the files in the PKZip archive archive.zip:
unzip -l archive.zip
“The Borgesian meta-library contains a copy of every book ever written, but my dream-artifact is already, and always, every book ever written, on demand” ~ William Gibson
cp - Copy files.
dd - Data Duplicator - convert and copy a file.
install - Copy files and set attributes.
mv - Move Files.
pax - Read and write file archives and copy directory hierarchies
tar - store or extract files to an archive (allows symbolic
links to be copied as links.)