UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

HI,
I am having strange issues with my tcsh shell.

First, the "ln" command doesnt seem to work properly.
I have a file "target" that is pointing to "file1". I cannot access file1 but that shouldnt matter.
when I do this, ln -sf file2 target
I get permission denied that I cannot access the file1.
So I have to do this to make it work:

Code:

rm -f target; ln -sf file2 target

Second,if my command is defined in 3 lines it does not work. e.g

Code:

alias mya ' ln -sf p.sh p1; \
	      ln -sf p.sh p2; \
	     echo "Done"'
throws an error -f: Command not found..
However when i define my command in 1 or 2 lines it works. e.g. this works
alias mya ' ln -sf p.sh p1; ln -sf p.sh p2; \
	     echo "Done"'

What could be the reason for these strange errors? everything works in bash. Is tcsh this bad?

any help appreciated.

Karan

Try calling the ln command with the full path, i.e. /bin/ln or wherever it's installed on your system, to guarantee you're using the real ln and not a shell builtin. Two things:

1) tcsh is not a Bourne shell. Its syntax is occasionally very, very different from BASH's.
2) csh and derivitaves are infamously bad. Avoid them if you can.