change target of a symbolic link


 
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# 1  
Old 02-13-2008
change target of a symbolic link

Hi,

Is it possible to change the target of a symbolic link?

What I currently have is:
/home/Data1
/home/Data2
/home/Stores

In the Stores directory, I did: ln -s /home/Data1 /home/Stores/abc
$ pwd
/home/Stores
$ ls -latr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 dandy dandy 46 Feb 12 16:38 abc -> /home/Data1

I want to now change that target to:
abc -> /home/Data2

BUT, I don't want to do have to delete the link and re-create it to the new target. I just want to rename/change/modify the target. Is it possible?


Thanks
# 2  
Old 02-13-2008
Yes it is possible
# 3  
Old 09-22-2008
So how do you change the target of a symlink?
# 4  
Old 09-23-2008
Very interested to hear fpmurphy's explanation on how to change target of symlink without deleting the symlink first.

I normally delete the symlink and re-create it on one line, minimizing the time the link does not exist:

rm mysymlink ; ln -s mytargetfile mysymlink

I suppose you could write a little hack which does it in one go, but I've never heard of one which is included in standard POSIX systems...
# 5  
Old 09-23-2008
fpmurphy is absolutely correct...yes you can change the target of a soft link without deleting the old one by forcing ln to do so.
Code:
ln -s /home/Data1 /home/Stores/abc
ln -f -s /home/Data2 /home/Stores/abc

# 6  
Old 09-23-2008
wow, thanx Smilie
 
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