delete dead links

KiranKumarKarre · #1 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

i am writing small shell script

how can i find dead links
How can delete dead links

Thanx

rakeshawasthi · #2 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

suppose you have a b c files in a dir
where c -> a
and b is a hard link to a ...
if you do ls -l
you would see

Code:

total 0
-rw-rw-r--    a
-rw-rw-r--    b
lrwxrwxrwx    c -> a

with some more columns in between...
If you delete a ... there wiill not be any impact on b...but c will become a dead link...
Now you want is, find files like c and delete them...

Code:

$ls -1L 2>/dev/null
b  

gives b because we have deleted a and c is a dead link.

$ls -1
b
c
gives both b and c.

so the difference of the two commands is c...delete it.

Code:

set -A _Array1 `ls -1 | xargs`
set -A _Array2 `ls -1L 2>/dev/null | xargs`

for file in ${_Array1[@]}
do
        _dead=0
        for link in ${_Array2[@]}
        do
                if [[ $file = $link ]]
                then
                        _dead=1
                        break;
                fi
        done
        if [[ $_dead -ne 1 ]]
        then
                echo $file is a dead link.
                #/bin/rm -f $file
        fi
done

I have commented the rm part...first run the program, see you are getting what you want and then run it.

scottn · #3 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

for FILE in *; do
ls -dL $FILE >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo RM $FILE
done

Or recursively...

for FILE in $(find .); do
ls -dL $FILE >/dev/null 2>&1 || echo RM $FILE
done

replace the echo RM with rm when you're happy!

panyam · #4 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

Rakesh

Code:

$ls -1L 2>/dev/null

in my case it's returning all files . Is it shell or OS dependent ??..

rakeshawasthi · #5 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by panyam

Nice explanation Rakesh..

Thanks panyam.

methyl · #6 (**permalink**) 06-19-2009

On unix systems a dead link file when viewed with "ls -ladL" has a link count of zero no permissions and is dated the epoch. Dead links in system partitions are best left alone - they can be there for good reason.
To find dead links:

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
find . -type l -print | while read FILENAME
do
        LINK_COUNT=0
        LINK_COUNT=`ls -ladL "${FILENAME}"|awk '{print $2}'`
        if [ ${LINK_COUNT} -eq 0 ]
        then
                ls -ald "${FILENAME}"
                ls -aldL "${FILENAME}"
                echo ""
        fi
done

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