Copy a file without replacing an existing destination.

C++: The default copy_file policy refuses to overwrite an existing destination.

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <string_view>
#include <vector>
#include <array>
#include <algorithm>
#include <numeric>
#include <map>
#include <unordered_map>
#include <set>
#include <queue>
#include <stack>
#include <deque>
#include <tuple>
#include <bitset>
#include <memory>
#include <optional>
#include <variant>
#include <functional>
#include <charconv>
#include <regex>
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
#include <filesystem>
#include <iomanip>
#include <cmath>
#include <cctype>
#include <limits>
#include <chrono>
#include <thread>
#include <future>
#include <mutex>
#include <atomic>
#include <condition_variable>

int main() {
    std::cout << std::boolalpha;
    std::filesystem::copy_file("source.txt","copy.txt");
    std::ifstream input("copy.txt");
    if (!input) return 1;
    std::cout << input.rdbuf();
}

Expected output EXAMPLE

copied

Details

Save as snippet.cpp; compile with g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra snippet.cpp -pthread -o snippet, then run ./snippet. The default copy_file policy refuses to overwrite an existing destination.

✓ Verified

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · 2026-11-02 18:03:55 UTC · g++ (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04.1) 13.3.0 · g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test inputs, results and environment

The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Unprivileged snippet process, external networking disabled, read-only root filesystem, and a fresh temporary working directory. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.

Architecture / host kernel: x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
Snippet identity / locale: uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged) / C.UTF-8
Interpreter invocation: g++ -std=c++17 -Wall -Wextra -Werror snippet.cpp -pthread -lm -o snippet && ./snippet
Container image ID: sha256:32dc2d998158b6554c99b73b533f423696a0f3e31e8cbea9db10b5eee9a2fadd
Code SHA-256: a14ec1a1a8888414f6d0f53017cb81b8e7842f83901ec008443b9901c6073822
Dependencies: g++ 4:13.2.0-7ubuntu1

Test input setup

These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.

printf 'copied\n' > source.txt

Observed standard output

copied

Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.

Additional assertions that passed

Checks recorded by the test harness. Where Python assertions are shown, browser cases use Playwright and simulator cases may inspect pin transitions: result.stdout is captured output, work is the temporary directory, and Path is pathlib.Path. The harness also imports json and csv.

assert Path('copy.txt').read_bytes() == Path('source.txt').read_bytes()