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Symbolic Link Confusion

 
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# 1  
Old 05-02-2007
Error Symbolic Link Confusion
I have just tried to make my first shortcut aka symbolic link.

I entered this command:
ln -s /one/two/three/four/help/admin admindirectory

to make a link called 'admindirectory' that would take me to:
/one/two/three/four/help/admin

It seems to have created a directory called 'admindirectory' with all the contents of '/one/two/three/four/help/admin' in it. Has it actually done this?

Also when I type 'cd admindir' and then 'pwd' it says:
/opt/webct/admindirectory

Is there now two seperate directories and if so which is the 'correct' one?

Thanks.
Last edited by Sepia; 05-07-2007 at 04:15 PM..
# 2  
Old 05-02-2007
Symbolic Link to a Directory
Gurus,
I tried the following

HTML Code:
mkdir -p /tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir
cd /tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir
touch a b c d e
The /tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir has following contents
a b c d e
Now my trying to create a symbolic link,

case 1) #Creates a directory with the contents of the target directory
HTML Code:
  ln -s /tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir /tmp/Linked-to-admin
  drwxr-xr-x    2 userA userA     4096 May  2 22:01 /tmp/Linked-to-admin
  ls /tmp/Linked-to-admin
   a b c d e
case 2) #Creates the link to the target directory.
HTML Code:
 ln -s /tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir/ /tmp/admin
 lrwxrwxrwx    1 userA  userA   25 May  2 21:59 /tmp/admin -> tmp/11/b/c/d/e/AdminDir/
 ls /tmp/admin
  a b c d e
Could please explain the behaviour in the above two cases.

Thanks
Nagarajan Ganesan.
# 3  
Old 05-07-2007
Is that related to the first post?
# 4  
Old 05-07-2007
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sepia
I have just tried to make my first shortcut aka symbolic link.

I entered this command:
ln -s /one/two/three/four/help/admin admindirectory

to make a link called 'admindirectory' that would take me to:
/one/two/three/four/help/admin

It seems to have created a directory called 'admindirectory' with all the contents of '/one/two/three/four/help/admin' in it. Has it actually done this?

Also when I type 'cd admindir' and then 'pwd' it says:
/opt/webct/admindirectory

Is there now two seperate directories and if so which is the 'correct' one?

Thanks.
if you do a "ls -l" in the directory where you created admindirectory it should list:

Code:
lrwxrwxrwx  1 user group   23 2006-09-07 23:52 admindirectory -> /one/two/three/four/help/admin

Dates and times will differ. This isn't really a copy of the directory, it is a pointer to the linked directory. If you make any changes inside admindirectory it will be the same in /one/two/three/four/help/admin (and vice versa)
# 5  
Old 05-07-2007
Thanks for that.

Is there anyother way of making 'shortcuts'?

I think I have used one where it didnt created a file/dir and worked from any location on the tree.
# 6  
Old 05-07-2007
Code:
alias admin="cd /one/two/three/four/help/admin"

This creates a new command "admin".

To see what aliases are currently defined:
Code:
alias

 
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