mkdir s -p option

Question

So this doesn t seem like a terribly complicated question I have  but it s one I can t find the answer to   I m confused about what the -p option does in Unix   I used it for a lab assignment while creating a subdirectory and then another subdirectory within that one   It looked like this   mkdir -p cmps012m lab1   This is in a private directory with normal rights  rlidwka   Oh  and would someone mind giving a little explanation of what rlidwka means   I m not a total noob to Unix  but I m not really familiar with what this means   Hopefully that s not too vague of a question

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PATH  Answered long ago  however  it maybe more helpful to think of -p as  Path   easier to remember   as in this causes mkdir to create every part of the path that isn t already there   mkdir -p  usr bin comm diff er fence  if  usr bin comm already exists  it acts like  mkdir  usr bin comm diff mkdir  usr bin comm diff er mkdir  usr bin comm diff er fence  As you can see  it saves you a bit of typing  and thinking  since you don t have to figure out what s already there and what isn t

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Note that -p is an argument to the mkdir command specifically  not the whole of Unix  Every command can have whatever arguments it needs   In this case it means  parents   meaning mkdir will create a directory and any parents that don t already exist

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mkdir  -switch  foldername  -p is a switch which is optional  it will create subfolder and parent folder as well even parent folder doesn t exist   From the man page   -p  --parents no error if existing  make parent directories as needed   Example   mkdir -p storage framework  sessions views cache    This will create subfolder sessions views cache inside framework folder irrespective of  framework  was available earlier or not

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The man pages is the best source of information you can find    and is at your fingertips  man mkdir yields this about -p switch   -p  --parents     no error if existing  make parent directories as needed   Use case example  Assume I want to create directories hello goodbye but none exist    mkdir hello goodbye mkdir cannot create directory  hello goodbye   No such file or directory  mkdir -p hello goodbye     -p created both  hello and goodbye  This means that the command will create all the directories necessaries to fulfill your request  not returning any error in case that directory exists   About rlidwka  Google has a very good memory for acronyms     My search returned this for example  http   www cs cmu edu  help afs afs acls html   Directory permissions  l  lookup      Allows one to list the contents of a directory  It does not allow the reading of files   i  insert      Allows one to create new files in a directory or copy new files to a directory   d  delete      Allows one to remove files and sub-directories from a directory   a  administer      Allows one to change a directory s ACL  The owner of a directory can always change the ACL of a directory that s he owns  along with the ACLs of any subdirectories in that directory    File permissions  r  read      Allows one to read the contents of file in the directory   w  write      Allows one to modify the contents of files in a directory and use chmod on them   k  lock      Allows programs to lock files in a directory     Hence rlidwka means  All permissions on   It s worth mentioning  as  KeithThompson pointed out in the comments  that not all Unix systems support ACL  So probably the rlidwka concept doesn t apply here

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-p --parent will be used if you are trying to create a directory with top-down approach  That will create the parent directory then child and so on iff none exists      -p  --parents       no error if existing  make parent directories as needed   About rlidwka it means giving full or administrative access  Found it here https   itservices stanford edu service afs intro permissions unix

[unix] mkdir's "-p" option

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