Copy (command)

In computing, codice_1 is a command in various operating systems. The command copies computer files from one directory to another.
Overview.
Generally, the command copies files from one location to another. It is used to make copies of existing files, but can also be used to combine (concatenate) multiple files into target files. The destination defaults to the current working directory. If multiple source files are indicated, the destination must be a directory, or an error will result. The command can copy in text mode or binary mode; in text mode, codice_1 will stop when it reaches the EOF character; in binary mode, the files will be concatenated in their entirety, ignoring EOF characters.
Files may be copied to devices. For example, codice_3 outputs "file" to the screen console. Devices themselves may be copied to a destination file, for example, codice_4 takes the text typed into the console and puts it into "FILE", stopping when EOF (Ctrl+Z) is typed.
Implementations.
The command is available in DEC RT-11, OS/8, RSX-11, Intel ISIS-II, iRMX 86, DEC TOPS-10, TOPS-20, OpenVMS, MetaComCo TRIPOS, Heath Company HDOS, Zilog Z80-RIO, Microware OS-9, DOS, DR FlexOS, IBM/Toshiba 4690 OS, TSL PC-MOS, HP MPE/iX, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows, Datalight ROM-DOS, ReactOS, SymbOS and DexOS.
The codice_1 command is supported by Tim Paterson's SCP 86-DOS. Under IBM PC DOS/MS-DOS it is available since version 1. A more advanced copy command is called codice_6.
The equivalent Unix command is codice_7, the CP/M command is codice_8.
The command is analogous to the Stratus OpenVOS codice_9 command.
Example for DOS.
 copy "letter.txt" ["destination"]
Files may be copied to device files (e.g. codice_10 sends the file to the printer on lpt1. codice_11 would output to stdout, like the codice_12 command. Note that codice_13 will concatenate the files and output them as codice_14. Which is just like the codice_15 command). It can also copy files between different disk drives.
There are two command-line switches to modify the behaviour when concatenating files:
 copy /a doc1.txt + doc2.txt doc3.txt
 copy /a *.txt doc3.txt
 copy /b image1.jpg + image2.jpg image3.jpg