mv (move and rename) in Linux CLI - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

💻 Command Output

intermediate

What is the output of this mv command?

You have a file named report.txt in your current directory. You run the command:

mv report.txt archive/

What happens after this command?

A The command fails because <code>archive</code> is not a file.

B The file <code>report.txt</code> is moved into the <code>archive</code> directory.

C A new file named <code>archive</code> is created with the contents of <code>report.txt</code>.

D The file <code>report.txt</code> is renamed to <code>archive</code> in the current directory.

💡 Hint

Think about how mv works when the destination is a directory.

When the destination is an existing directory, mv moves the source file into that directory, keeping the same filename.

💻 Command Output

intermediate

What is the result of renaming a file with mv?

You have a file named data.csv. You run:

mv data.csv data_backup.csv

What is the state of the files after this command?

A The file <code>data.csv</code> is renamed to <code>data_backup.csv</code> in the same directory.

B The command copies <code>data.csv</code> to <code>data_backup.csv</code> but keeps the original.

C Both <code>data.csv</code> and <code>data_backup.csv</code> exist with the same content.

D The command fails because <code>data_backup.csv</code> does not exist.

💡 Hint

mv can rename files by changing the filename in the same directory.

mv changes the filename by moving the file to a new name in the same location, effectively renaming it.

💻 Command Output

advanced

What error does this mv command produce?

You run the command:

mv file1.txt /root/

as a normal user (not root). What happens?

A Permission denied error because the user cannot write to /root directory.

B The file <code>file1.txt</code> is moved successfully to /root.

C The file is renamed to /root in the current directory.

D The command creates a copy of <code>file1.txt</code> in /root.

💡 Hint

Consider user permissions for system directories.

Normal users usually do not have write permission to /root, so mv fails with a permission denied error.

💻 Command Output

advanced

What is the output of this mv command with a wildcard?

You have files: img1.png, img2.png, and img3.png in your current directory. You run:

mv img*.png images/

What happens?

A The command fails because wildcards are not supported by mv.

B Only <code>img1.png</code> is moved to <code>images</code> directory.

C The command renames the first matching file to <code>images</code>.

D All files starting with 'img' and ending with '.png' are moved into the <code>images</code> directory.

💡 Hint

mv supports wildcards expanded by the shell.

The shell expands the wildcard to all matching files, so mv moves all those files into the target directory.

🚀 Application

expert

How to move and rename multiple files with a script?

You want to move all .log files from logs/ directory to archive/ directory and rename them by adding the prefix old_ to each filename.

Which bash script snippet correctly does this?

A mv logs/*.log archive/old_*.log

B for f in logs/*.log; do mv "$f" "archive/$(basename "$f")_old"; done

C for f in logs/*.log; do mv "$f" "archive/old_$(basename "$f")"; done

D mv logs/*.log archive/old_log

💡 Hint

You need to loop over files and rename each individually.

Option C loops over each .log file, moves it to archive with the prefix 'old_' added to the filename. Others either misuse mv or rename incorrectly.