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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Creating links to multiple folders Post 302307160 by JerryHone on Tuesday 14th of April 2009 07:35:39 PM
Old 04-14-2009
There are 2 types of link that you can create...hard links and soft, or symbolic links. Both are created using the ln command.
Hard links are created by the system creating an extra reference to a specific disk inode, so you have 2 or more filenames pointing at the same piece of disk. Once created, you can't tell which was the original file and which is the link. A file won't actually be deleted until all links to it are removed. When you run the "ls -l" command, the second column (normally 1s and 2s) is the number of links to the file. As hard links are created at disk level, you clearly can't have hard links crossing file systems.
A soft link is simply another file that contains an arbitrary string which would be the path to another file anywhere on the system. Note that it could also be an incorrect path to a non-existent file! Consider it similar to a Windoze desktop shortcut.
So back to your example, in your videos directory, you can run the command...
Code:
ln -s /usb/videos/movie4

By default, the symbolic name will match the name of the target file so a target link name isn't necessary here. This will create a symbolic link to movie4 and allow you to access it directly in the videos directory as if it was really there. Obviously if you had a real movie5 in videos as well as another movie5 in /usb/videos, you'll have to give the link another name.
"rm movie4" in the videos directory will remove the link and NOT the target file, while the same command in the /usb/videos directory will remove the file and would leave the /videos/movie4 link pointing at a non-existent file.

d.the.duck has suggested using 'ln-F' ... this is for directory linking rather than files and I'm not sure will work as expected.

Hope that helps.
 

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folders(1mh)															      folders(1mh)

Name
       folders - list folders and contents

Syntax
       folders [ +folder ] [ msg ] [ options ]

Description
       The command displays the names of your folders and the number of messages that they each contain.

       The  command displays a list of all the folders in your Mail directory.	The folders are sorted alphabetically, each on its own line.  This
       is illustrated in the following example:
	 Folder      # of messages (  range  ); cur  msg  (other files)
	   V2.3  has	3 messages (   1-   3).
	 adrian  has   20 messages (   1-  20); cur=   2.
	  brian  has   16 messages (   1-  16).
	  chris  has   12 messages (   1-  12).
	copylog  has  242 messages (   1- 242); cur= 225.
	  inbox+ has   73 messages (   1- 127); cur= 127.
	    int  has	4 messages (   1-   4); cur=   2  (others).
	   jack  has   17 messages (   1-  17); cur=  17.

		 TOTAL= 387 messages in 8 folders.
       The plus sign (+) after inbox indicates that it is the current folder.  The information about the folder includes the term (others).   This
       indicates  that the folder contains files which are not messages.  These files may be either sub-folders, or files that do not belong under
       the MH file naming scheme.

       The command is identical to the effect of using the -all option to the command.

       If you use with the +folder argument, it will display all the subfolders within the named folder.  as shown in the following example:
       % folders +test
       Folder		# of messages (  range	); cur	msg  (other files)
       test+ has	  18 messages (   1-  18);	     (others).
       test/testone has    1 message  (   1-   1).
       test/testtwo has   no messages.

	      TOTAL=   19 messages in 3 folders.
       See for more details of sub-folders.

Options
       -fast
       -nofast	 Lists only the name of folders, with no additional information.  This is faster because the folders need not be read.

       -help	 Prints a list of the valid options to this command.

       -list
       -nolist	 Lists the contents of the folder-stack.  No +folder argument is allowed with this option.

       -pack
       -nopack	 Re-numbers messages in the folders.  Messages are re-numbered sequentially, and any gaps  in  the  numbering  are  removed.   The
		 default operation is -nopack, which does not change the numbering in the folder.

       -pop	 Discards  the	top of the folder-stack, after setting the current folder to that value.  No +folder argument is allowed with this
		 option.  This corresponds to the operation in the C-shell; see The -push and -pop options are mutually exclusive: the last occur-
		 rence of either one overrides any previous occurrence of the other.

       -push	 Pushes  the  current  folder  onto  the  folder-stack, and makes the +folder argument into the current folder.  If +folder is not
		 given, the current folder and the top of the folder-stack are exchanged.  This corresponds to the operation in the  C-shell;  see
		 The  -push switch and the -pop switch are mutually exclusive: the last occurrence of either one overrides any previous occurrence
		 of the other.

       -recurse
       -norecurse
		 Lists folders recursively.  Information on each folder is displayed, followed by information on any  sub-folders  which  it  con-
		 tains.

       -total
       -nototal  Displays  only the total number of messages and folders in your Mail directory.  This option does not print any information about
		 individual folders.  It can be suppressed using the -nototal option.

       The defaults for are:

	      +folder defaults to all
	      msg defaults to none
	      -nofast
	      -noheader
	      -nototal
	      -nopack
	      -norecurse

Restrictions
       MH does not allow you to have more than 100 folders at any level in your Mail directory.

Profile Components
       Path:		 To determine your MH directory
       Folder-Protect:	 To set protections when creating a new folder
       Folder-Stack:	 To determine the folder stack
       lsproc:		 Program to list the contents of a folder

Files
       The user profile.

See Also
       csh(1), folder(1mh), refile(1mh), mhpath(1mh)

																      folders(1mh)
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