Linux "symlinks" is a handy utility for managing symbolic links. It can clean up the sort of problems that come from carelesness when creating symbolic links. For purposes of illustration, I created some legal but structurally incorrect symbolic links. With the exeption of the "dangling" sl3 (a dangling symlink points somewhere that does not exist), these all work, but they have problems, and "symlinks -v" will show us:
$ symlinks -v -s . messy: /home/tony/varwwwmess -> /var//www dangling: /home/tony/sl2 -> ../incoming lengthy: /home/tony/sl3 -> ../tony/incoming other_fs: /home/tony/varwww -> /var/www absolute: /home/tony/vhosts -> /home/httpd/vhosts/ relative: /home/tony/webby -> vhosts/webby.com
That's helpful. Even more helpful is that symlinks can clean this stuff up in a flash:
$ symlinks -c -s . messy: /home/tony/varwwwmess -> /var//www changed: /home/tony/varwwwmess -> /var/www dangling: /home/tony/sl2 -> ../incoming lengthy: /home/tony/sl3 -> ../tony/incoming changed: /home/tony/sl3 -> incoming other_fs: /home/tony/varwww -> /var/www absolute: /home/tony/vhosts -> /home/httpd/vhosts/ changed: /home/tony/vhosts -> ../httpd/vhosts $ symlinks -v -s . other_fs: /home/tony/varwwwmess -> /var/www relative: /home/tony/sl3 -> incoming dangling: /home/tony/sl2 -> ../incoming other_fs: /home/tony/varwww -> /var/www relative: /home/tony/vhosts -> ../httpd/vhosts relative: /home/tony/webby -> vhosts/webby.com
The -c fixes all problems, but does leave the dangling link. To remove it:
$ symlinks -d . other_fs: /home/tony/varwwwmess -> /var/www dangling: /home/tony/sl2 -> ../incoming deleted: /home/tony/sl2 -> ../incoming other_fs: /home/tony/varwww -> /var/www
"symlinks" can operate recursively with "-r" and can show you its actions with "-t".
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More Articles by Tony Lawrence © 2009-11-06 Tony Lawrence
Better to fight for something than live for nothing. (George S. Patton)
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Symlinks Copyright © October 2005 Tony Lawrence
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