linux: copy and create destination dir if it does not exist

Question

Linux: I want a command (or probably an option to cp) that creates the destination directory if it does not exist.

Example:

cp -? file /path/to/copy/file/to/is/very/deep/there

Answer 1

test -d "$d" || mkdir -p "$d" && cp file "$d"

(there's no such option for cp).

Answer 2

Shell function that does what you want, calling it a "bury" copy because it digs a hole for the file to live in:

bury_copy() { mkdir -p `dirname $2` && cp "$1" "$2"; }