script/command to delete all symlinks from a directory

reddazz · 03-15-2005, 10:54 PM

Does anyone know a command or script that I could use to delete all symbolic links from a directory and preserve all files that are not symlinks.

shotokan · 03-15-2005, 10:59 PM

Why would you wan't to do that?

homey · 03-15-2005, 11:01 PM

From man find, it looks like you could use -lname

Quote:

-lname pattern
File is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pattern. The
metacharacters do not treat ‘/’ or ‘.’ specially.

Edit: yep, it seems to work but I'd be careful with what gets removed. Maybe list them firsl...
find /home -lname '*' -exec ls {} \;

find /home -maxdepth 1 -lname '*' -exec rm {} \;

reddazz · 03-15-2005, 11:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by shotokan
Why would you wan't to do that?

Coz I got a directory with about 50 symlinks that need to be deleted.

reddazz · 03-15-2005, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by homey
From man find, it looks like you could use -lname

Edit: yep, it seems to work but I'd be careful with what gets removed. Maybe list them firsl...
find /home -lname '*' -exec ls {} \;

find /home -maxdepth 1 -lname '*' -exec rm {} \;

Thanks the command right at the bottom of your post worked like a charm.

Dark_Helmet · 03-15-2005, 11:39 PM

I'll 1-up homey:

Code:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type l -exec rm -f {} \;

Really, the same thing, but you don't need the '*' wildcard.