How to keep file attributes by using Copyfile in Matlab

Hello everyone,

I have a small question on how you preserve file attributes, when you use copyfile(source, destination)? By doing so, I take over the ownership, which I do not want. I just want to copy them to another folder ''Archive''.

Thank you in advance Pedram

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

What you're seeing is the normal behaviour of file copy on all OSes.

Matlab itself does not give you any way to override that. You'll have to defer to your OS. If you're on Windows, you can use robocopy (included in windows 7, 8, and 10, not just server).

!robocopy source destination /copyall

will preserve everything.

Answer 2

[Pedram Arabschahi]

Thanks a lot. Although I take Ownership of the file. But it works. Do you know some commands, where the real owner of a file stay in the file?

Thanks. Pedram

[Guillaume]

Please use Comment on this Answer rather than starting a new answer.

If you use the /copyall flag, equivalent to /copy:DATSOU, the ownership should be preserved. That's what the O flag should do.

[Pedram Arabschahi]

Hi Guillaume that is what I already tried, but I do not have admin rights, that is why it did not work for me. Even with local admin rights in a network I just could run the command but still the ownership changed to "admin".

Somebody in the company explained the reason as security related to see who put the file somewhere and maybe I could go for winrar to pack & later unpack after the copy. but for many files it is a really slow approach.

[Guillaume]

Well, yes, without administrative rights, robocopy, or any other program for that matter, will not let you impersonate another user which is required when creating a file with a different ownership than yours.