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(fileutils.info)Target directory

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Target directory
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   Some GNU programs (at least `cp', `install', `ln', and `mv') allow
you to specify the target directory via this option:

`--target-directory=DIRECTORY'
     Specify the destination DIRECTORY.

     The interface for most programs is that after processing options
     and a finite (possibly zero) number of fixed-position arguments,
     the remaining argument list is either expected to be empty, or is
     a list of items (usually files) that will all be handled
     identically.  The `xargs' program is designed to work well with
     this convention.

     The commands in the `mv'-family are unusual in that they take a
     variable number of arguments with a special case at the _end_
     (namely, the target directory).  This makes it nontrivial to
     perform some operations, e.g., "move all files from here to
     ../d/", because `mv * ../d/' might exhaust the argument space, and
     `ls | xargs ...' doesn't have a clean way to specify an extra
     final argument for each invocation of the subject command.  (It
     can be done by going through a shell command, but that requires
     more human labor and brain power than it should.)

     The `--target-directory' option allows the `cp', `install', `ln',
     and `mv' programs to be used conveniently with `xargs'.  For
     example, you can move the files from the current directory to a
     sibling directory, `d' like this: (However, this doesn't move
     files whose names begin with `.'.)

          ls |xargs mv --target-directory=../d

     If you use the GNU `find' program, you can move _all_ files with
     this command:
          find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 \
            | xargs mv --target-directory=../d

     But that will fail if there are no files in the current directory
     or if any file has a name containing a newline character.  The
     following example removes those limitations and requires both GNU
     `find' and GNU `xargs':
          find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print0 \
            | xargs --null --no-run-if-empty \
                mv --target-directory=../d