Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 17:29:33 -0400 From: Paul Chvostek <paul+fbsd@it.ca> To: sara lidgey <slidgey@yahoo.ca> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: multiple links with single ln command Message-ID: <20060627212933.GA23336@it.ca> In-Reply-To: <20060627181422.6917.qmail@web35702.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060627181422.6917.qmail@web35702.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hiya.
On Tue, Jun 27, 2006 at 02:14:22PM -0400, sara lidgey wrote:
>
> I've read the man page for ln but can't find a way to do this. I want to create multiple links to a single directory with one command. Consider the following example. I have a directory structure like this:
> test/a/
> test/b/
> test/c/
> I want to create a symbolic link called "clink" in test/a/ and test/b/ which points to test/c/
>
> The only way I know to do this is with two commands:
> ln -s test/c test/a/clink
> ln -s test/c test/b/clink
>
> Can it be done with a single command?
No. Well, it depends on what you consider a single command. :)
Consider that your command line uses fileglob expansion to determine the
full command line *before* the command is run. The notation you're
looking at is this:
ln [-fhinsv] source_file ... target_dir
which means the `ln` command takes a left-hand-side (the source,
possibly multiple sources) and a right-hand-side (the target).
But you're asking to go the other way around, with a single source being
created in multiple targets. If you have ALOT of these links to make,
or need to do this on an regular basis, I suggest making a small script
that does what you want; perhaps something like this:
#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -lt 2 ]; then
echo "Usage: altln source_file target_dir ...
exit 1
fi
source_file="$1"; shift
for target_dir in $*; do
ln -svi "$source_file" "$target_dir"
done
... which you can run with a command line like:
# ls -F test/
a/ b/ c/
# altln ../c test/a test/b
# ls -l test/*/*
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4 Jun 27 17:28 test/a/c -> ../c
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 4 Jun 27 17:28 test/b/c -> ../c
#
(Bear in mind that the symbolic link you create will be evaluated
relative to ITS location, not your cwd when you create the link.)
--
Paul Chvostek <paul@it.ca>
it.canada http://www.it.ca/
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20060627212933.GA23336>