UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello,

I would like to create symbolic links for a series of files in my cwd (after confirming that the links don't already exist). The above files all have a similar prefix, but different extensions.

I created a shell script like shown below and I get an error message "No such file or directory"

Code:

#!/bin/sh

for x in `ls -1 /myRandomDir/myFiles.*`
do
    if [ ! -f $x ]
    then
        ln -s $x
    fi
done

What should I do differently.

Thanks!
~Guss

ln -s needs two parameters (man ln): And, you don't need the command substitution in the for statement: for x in /myRandomDir/myFiles.* should suffice.

Hello Rudi,

Well, I want to use the 2nd form without an alias; the manual tells me that I need to do the following:

Code:

 ln -s TARGET

Following this logic, I wan to create symlinks in my cwd for files that exist in another directory.

I have used the code in my previous thread, sans the check for existence, number of times. This time around, I wanted to add code to check the symlinks don't exist before I create them.

Thanks for your input!
~Guss

$x is the target, where the link points to.
The target should exist. The link is implicitly generated by the ln; you must explicitly generate it for a test.

Code:

if [ -f "$x" ] && [ ! -f `basename "$x"` ]
then

Sorry, that wasn't clear from your post. Where and when does the error msg occur? Please provide the two directory listings, too.