copy [--respective|:r] expression location expression$results := copy [--respective|:r] expression location expression

cp

Copies nodes in the first node-list expression (source nodes) to the destinations determined by the the location directive applied to nodes in the second node-list expression (target nodes). If the source node-list contains more than one node, than N'th node in the source node-list is copied to the location relative to the N'th node in the target node-list.

If --respective|:r option is used, then the target node-list expression is evaluated in the context of the source node being copied.

Possible values for location are: after, before, into, replace, append and prepend. The first three location directives cause making a copy of the source nodes after, before, and within (as the last child-node) the target nodes, respectively. If replace location directive is used, source node are copied before the respective target nodes and target nodes are removed. The append and prepend location directives allow, depending on the destination node type, either inserting copies of the source nodes as the first or last child nodes of a destination element or appending/prepending destination node data in case of non-element destination nodes. See location argument type for more detail.

The command returns a node-list consisting of the copies of all source nodes created by the command.

Despite the fact the command is named "copy", nodes resulting from copying the source nodes may pass through certain type conversion before they are inserted at the appointed destinations. This, however, only happens in cases where the types of the source and target nodes are not compatible with the location directive. See location argument type for more detail.

Note that XSH2 refuses to create multiple top-level elements using copy, move and similar commands.

xsh> copy $a//creature replace $b//living-thing

xsh> copy --respective $a//* into .

xsh> copy $a//* into $a//*#same as
above

xcopy, move, xmove, insert, xinsert