Linux commands to copy one file to many files

Question

Is there a one-line command/script to copy one file to many files on Linux?

cp file1 file2 file3

copies the first two files into the third.

Answer 1

Use something like the following. It works on zsh.

cat file > firstCopy > secondCopy > thirdCopy

or

cat file > {1..100} - for filenames with numbers.

It's good for small files.

You should use the cp script mentioned earlier for larger files.

Answer 2

You can use shift:

file=$1
shift
for dest in "$@" ; do
    cp -r $file $dest
done

Answer 3

cat file1 | tee file2 | tee file3 | tee file4 | tee file5 >/dev/null