How do I copy an empty directory?

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

This question seems so simple, I am almost embarrassed to ask it but yet I can't figure it out so here goes. I have an empty directory name, x:\this\directory\name\is\empty. How can I move the empty directory named "empty" at the end of the path to c:\temp for example to make c:\temp\empty?

The operating system is Windows in case that matters and I actually thought about using a system call to either xcopy or robocopy and neither of them will do it either, even with all attempts at using their switches such as /e /s /t, and more. All I can seem to copy is all the data UNDER the directory if it were NOT empty but again, some directories in my path are empty and some are not so I need to copy them all, either way. Any ideas would certainly be welcome. Thank you.

Comment on How do I copy an empty directory?

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Re: How do I copy an empty directory? by hominid (Priest) on Oct 02, 2012 at 20:25 UTC
Create a new directory with the desired name and then delete the old directory.	[reply]
Re^2: How do I copy an empty directory? by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2012 at 00:59 UTC
As mentioned in the original post, some directories are not empty. How would this deal with those?	[reply]
Re^3: How do I copy an empty directory? by hominid (Priest) on Oct 03, 2012 at 02:08 UTC
The question, smartass, was "How can I move the empty directory named "empty" at the end of the path to c:\temp for example to make c:\temp\empty?"	[reply]
Re^4: How do I copy an empty directory? by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2012 at 09:12 UTC
Re: How do I copy an empty directory? by Kenosis (Priest) on Oct 02, 2012 at 21:05 UTC
Although hominid's solution makes a lot of sense, here's another option: `use strict; use warnings; use File::Copy::Recursive qw/ dirmove /; dirmove( 'x:\this\directory\name\is\empty', 'c:\temp\empty' ) or die $ +!;` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re: How do I copy an empty directory? by kcott (Archbishop) on Oct 02, 2012 at 21:15 UTC
Have you tried File::Copy? Your node title has "How do I copy ..."; your node content has "How can I move ...". `File::Copy` has functions for both operations. Update: It appears I was wrong about the `copy()` part; although, `move()` seems to work fine. See discussion below. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: How do I copy an empty directory? by Anonymous Monk on Oct 03, 2012 at 00:58 UTC
Correct me if I am wrong, but File::Copy copies files and not directories.	[reply]
Re^3: How do I copy an empty directory? by kcott (Archbishop) on Oct 03, 2012 at 01:19 UTC
Well, it seems you're correct with respect to `File::Copy::copy()`; however, `File::Copy::move()` seems to work fine. I tried `copy()` on an empty directory and just got an empty (normal) file. I then tried `move()` on an empty directory and that worked; `move()` on a populated directory also worked, i.e. moved the directory and its contents. If you're the OP, sorry for the bum steer. I'll update my post. -- Ken	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: How do I copy an empty directory? by pvaldes (Chaplain) on Oct 03, 2012 at 08:33 UTC
`#!/usr/bin/perl use File::Find; finddepth (\&empdir, ($ARGV[0] \|\| '.')); sub empdir { return unless -d && rmdir($_); mkdir "/tmp/$_"; }` [download] Works for me in GNU. Any "empty" directory having only empty subdirectories will be deleted also (as the empty subdirs). Adapt the line 7 to your needs	[reply] [d/l]