mkdir

The mkdir (make directory) command in the Unix, DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows operating systems is used to make a new directory. In DOS, OS/2 and Windows the command is often abbreviated to md.

Usage

Normal usage is as straightforward as follows:

mkdir name_of_directory

Where name_of_directory is the name of the directory one wants to create. When typed as above (i.e. normal usage), the new directory would be created within the current directory. On Unix, multiple directories can be specified, and mkdir will try to create all of them.

Options

On Unix-like operating systems, mkdir takes options. Three of the most common options are:

• -p: will also create all directories leading up to the given directory that do not exist already. If the given directory already exists, ignore the error.
• -v: display each directory that mkdir creates. Most often used with -p.
• -m: specify the octal permissions of directories created by mkdir.

-p is most often used when using mkdir to build up complex directory hierarchies, in case a necessary directory is missing or already there. -m is commonly used to lock down temporary directories used by shell scripts.

Examples

An example of -p in action is:

mkdir -p /tmp/a/b/c

If /tmp/a exists but /tmp/a/b does not, mkdir will create /tmp/a/b before creating /tmp/a/b/c.

And an even more powerful command, creating a full tree at once (this however is a Shell extension, nothing mkdir does itself):

mkdir -p tmpdir/{trunk/sources/{includes,docs},branches,tags}

This will create:

          tmpdir
    ________|______
   |        |      |
branches   tags  trunk
                   |
                 sources
               ____|_____
              |          |
          includes     docs

History

In early versions of Unix (4.1BSD, early versions of System V) this command had to be setuid root as the kernel did not have an mkdir syscall. Instead, it made the directory with mknod and linked in the . and .. directory entries manually.

See also

• Find - The find command coupled with mkdir can be used to only recreate a directory structure (without files).
• List of Unix programs
• List of DOS commands

References

• Microsoft TechNet Mkdir article
• mkdir: make directories – Commands & Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX® Specification, Issue 7 from The Open Group