Darwin.CopyFile

A binding to the Darwin OS copyfile API.

The Darwin copyfile API can copy files, their metadata, extended attributes, recursive directory and supports fast copies using cloning (for files hosted on APFS on macOS and iOS).

Using the API

The main API is:

public class CopyFile {
    static Status Copy (string from, string to, Flags flags, State state = null);
}

Generally, you will configure the operatiob by passing the desired flags to Copy which controls whether to perform nested copied, whether to use cloning, copy attributes and so on.

Examples

Copy a file:

CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hostscopy", CopyFile.Flags.All);

Copy a file, using cloning:

CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hosts", CopyFile.Flags.All | CopyFile.Flags.Clone);

Copy a file, using clone, two times:

CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hosts2", CopyFile.Flags.All | CopyFile.Flags.Clone);

// This fails, becaue Clone refuses to override the file if the target exists:
CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hosts2", CopyFile.Flags.All | CopyFile.Flags.Clone);

// Tell Copy to unlink (remove) the target if it is present:
CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hosts2", CopyFile.Flags.All | CopyFile.Flags.Clone | CopyFile.Flags.Unlink);

Copy a file, only if the target does not exist (returns EEXIST) error if this is the case:

CopyFile.Copy ("/etc/hosts", "/tmp/hosts", CopyFile.Flags.All | CopyFile.Flags.Excl)  

Recursively copy a directory, using clone:

CopyFile.Copy ("/Users/miguel/Desktop", "/tmp/CopyDesktop", CopyFile.Flags.All |  CopyFile.Flags.Clone | CopyFile.Flags.Recursive);

Controling Recursive Copies

The State object is used to control how recursive copies are performed, you create a state object and you can further customize how the copy works by providing a callback to it and accessing the State object from the callback.