# 11.12 `distutils.file_util` -- Single file operations

This module contains some utility functions for operating on individual files.

`copy_file`( | src, dst[preserve_mode=`1`, preserve_times=`1`, update=`0`, link=`None`, verbose=`0`, dry_run=`0`])

  Copy file src to dst. If dst is a directory, then src is copied there with the same name; otherwise, it must be a filename. (If the file exists, it will be ruthlessly clobbered.) If preserve_mode is true (the default), the file's mode (type and permission bits, or whatever is analogous on the current platform) is copied. If preserve_times is true (the default), the last-modified and last-access times are copied as well. If update is true, src will only be copied if dst does not exist, or if dst does exist but is older than src.

  link allows you to make hard links (using `os.link`) or symbolic links (using `os.symlink`) instead of copying: set it to `'hard'` or `'sym'`; if it is `None` (the default), files are copied. Don't set link on systems that don't support it: `copy_file()` doesn't check if hard or symbolic linking is available. It uses `_copy_file_contents()` to copy file contents.

  Return a tuple "`(dest_name, copied)`": dest_name is the actual name of the output file, and copied is true if the file was copied (or would have been copied, if dry_run true).

`move_file`( | src, dst[verbose, dry_run])

  Move file src to dst. If dst is a directory, the file will be moved into it with the same name; otherwise, src is just renamed to dst. Returns the new full name of the file. Warning: Handles cross-device moves on Unix using `copy_file()`. What about other systems???

`write_file`( | filename, contents)

  Create a file called filename and write contents (a sequence of strings without line terminators) to it.