Re: scp syntax question

[Scott Klement <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wildcards are resolved by the shell, not by scp.  So given your example, 
the shell will first take a*.TXT and find all files that match.   For 
instance, let's say it finds files named apple.TXT, alice.TXT and 
alleycat.TXT.  It will then replace your wildcard expression with the 
matching filenames, so it will run:

scp apple.TXT alice.TXT alleycat.TXT b

This means the scp program will get 4 parameters.  It will interpret all 
parameters except the last one as files to copy.  The last one will be 
assumed to be the destination.  Since there's more than one file to 
copy, it'll expect 'b' to be a directory, and will copy all of the files 
there.  (Whereas, if there was only one matching file, 'b' could either 
be a filename or a directory -- and if b doesn't already exist, an 
filename would be assumed.)

Make sense?


On 8/16/2013 2:04 PM, John McKee wrote:
> What does scp do given the following:
>
> scp a*.TXT b
>
> where there can be multiple files that start with the letter a
>
> and
>
> b is a directory
>
>
> John McKee