How can I copy a file on Unix using C?

There is no need to either call non-portable APIs like sendfile, or shell out to external utilities. The same method that worked back in the 70s still works now:

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>

int cp(const char *to, const char *from)
{
    int fd_to, fd_from;
    char buf[4096];
    ssize_t nread;
    int saved_errno;

    fd_from = open(from, O_RDONLY);
    if (fd_from < 0)
        return -1;

    fd_to = open(to, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_EXCL, 0666);
    if (fd_to < 0)
        goto out_error;

    while (nread = read(fd_from, buf, sizeof buf), nread > 0)
    {
        char *out_ptr = buf;
        ssize_t nwritten;

        do {
            nwritten = write(fd_to, out_ptr, nread);

            if (nwritten >= 0)
            {
                nread -= nwritten;
                out_ptr += nwritten;
            }
            else if (errno != EINTR)
            {
                goto out_error;
            }
        } while (nread > 0);
    }

    if (nread == 0)
    {
        if (close(fd_to) < 0)
        {
            fd_to = -1;
            goto out_error;
        }
        close(fd_from);

        /* Success! */
        return 0;
    }

  out_error:
    saved_errno = errno;

    close(fd_from);
    if (fd_to >= 0)
        close(fd_to);

    errno = saved_errno;
    return -1;
}

There is no baked-in equivalent CopyFile function in the APIs. But sendfile can be used to copy a file in kernel mode which is a faster and better solution (for numerous reasons) than opening a file, looping over it to read into a buffer, and writing the output to another file.

Update:

As of Linux kernel version 2.6.33, the limitation requiring the output of sendfile to be a socket was lifted and the original code would work on both Linux and — however, as of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, sendfile on OS X now requires the output to be a socket and the code won't work!

The following code snippet should work on the most OS X (as of 10.5), (Free)BSD, and Linux (as of 2.6.33). The implementation is "zero-copy" for all platforms, meaning all of it is done in kernelspace and there is no copying of buffers or data in and out of userspace. Pretty much the best performance you can get.

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#if defined(__APPLE__) || defined(__FreeBSD__)
#include <copyfile.h>
#else
#include <sys/sendfile.h>
#endif

int OSCopyFile(const char* source, const char* destination)
{    
    int input, output;    
    if ((input = open(source, O_RDONLY)) == -1)
    {
        return -1;
    }    
    if ((output = creat(destination, 0660)) == -1)
    {
        close(input);
        return -1;
    }

    //Here we use kernel-space copying for performance reasons
#if defined(__APPLE__) || defined(__FreeBSD__)
    //fcopyfile works on FreeBSD and OS X 10.5+ 
    int result = fcopyfile(input, output, 0, COPYFILE_ALL);
#else
    //sendfile will work with non-socket output (i.e. regular file) on Linux 2.6.33+
    off_t bytesCopied = 0;
    struct stat fileinfo = {0};
    fstat(input, &fileinfo);
    int result = sendfile(output, input, &bytesCopied, fileinfo.st_size);
#endif

    close(input);
    close(output);

    return result;
}

EDIT: Replaced the opening of the destination with the call to creat() as we want the flag O_TRUNC to be specified. See comment below.