mkdir's “-p” option

Question

So this doesn\'t seem like a terribly complicated question I have, but it\'s one I can\'t find the answer to. I\'m confused about what the -p option does in Unix.

Answer 1

Note that -p is an argument to the mkdir command specifically, not the whole of Unix. Every command can have whatever arguments it needs.

In this case it means "parents", meaning mkdir will create a directory and any parents that don't already exist.