Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

mv

Synopsis

mv [option] sources target
                  

Moves or renames files and directories. In the following table, the source (first column) and target (second column) determine the result (third column):

Source	Target	Result
File	name (nonexistent)	Rename file to name.
File	Existing file	Overwrite existing file with source file.
Directory	name (nonexistent)	Rename directory to name.
Directory	Existing directory	Move directory to be a subdirectory of existing directory.
One or more files	Existing directory	Move files to directory.

mv doesn’t preserve resource forks or HFS metadata when moving files that contain them. For such files, use MvMac instead.

Options

-f

Force the move, even if target file exists; suppress messages about restricted access modes. Overrides previous -i and -n options.

-i

Query user before removing files. Overrides previous -f and -n options.

-n

Don’t overwrite existing target files. Overrides previous -f and -i options.

-v

Verbose; show files as they’re being moved.