cp: Copy

To copy the contents of a directory into another directory, the following is used:

The contents of directory1 will be copied into directory2. If directory2 does not exist if will be created. If it exists, a copy of directory1 will be created as a subdirectory of directory2. In both cases, a new directory will be created.

-r

(recursive) is a recursive copy: When a directory is encountered, its files are also copied.

-i

(interactive) will prompt the user for confirmation if a file will get overwritten during the copy.

-p

(preserve) will keep the time-stamps and permissions of the original files.