system-programming/exercises/mycp/README.md

📄 mycp – A Simple File Copy Utility in C

mycp is a basic implementation of the Unix cp command written in C.
It copies the contents of one file into another, handling errors and signals safely.

---

📦 Project Structure

mycp/
├── mycp.c           # Main program source
├── Makefile         # Build and test automation
└── test/
    └── run_tests.sh # Automated test and Valgrind report

---

⚙️ Build Instructions

To compile the program:

make

To clean up build files:

make clean

To remove test artifacts as well:

make distclean

---

🧪 Running Tests

The test script:

• Creates temporary test files
• Runs mycp and compares results with cmp
• Uses Valgrind to check for memory issues

Run the tests with:

make test

---

🚀 Usage

./mycp SOURCE DEST

• SOURCE: Path to the file to copy from.
• DEST: Path to the file to copy to.

Example:

./mycp input.txt output.txt

---

🧠 Learning Objectives

• Open/read/write/close file descriptors
• Use of open(2), read(2), write(2), and close(2)
• Error handling (perror, errno)
• Use of Makefile and basic testing with shell scripts
• Optional: use of lseek for advanced length computation

---

✅ Requirements

• GCC (C11)
• POSIX-compliant system (Linux, macOS)
• Valgrind for memory leak analysis (optional, used in tests)

---

📄 License

Educational use only. No license required.