diff on directories with links not working?

jiobo · 11-25-2009, 12:10 PM

Have some directories that I want to compare to see if they are the same. In trying to use the diff command, I get output for symbolic or hard link files that says: "No such file or directory". But if I "ls -l" they are there but as links.

diff GNU utils version 2.8.1

Code:

diff -r --brief /directory1 /directory2

Chirel · 11-25-2009, 04:27 PM

I guess you have symbolic links to files that don't exist.

jiobo · 11-25-2009, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chirel

I guess you have symbolic links to files that don't exist.

All of the files exist. That is what I meant when they are listed by "ls -l" and if I list those directories, they are there too.

My question is how to get diff to work with links?

Chirel · 11-25-2009, 08:03 PM

Code:

# ln -s /some/file/that/do/not/exist myfile
# ls -l myfile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 bob bob 28 2009-11-26 01:54 myfile -> /some/file/that/do/not/exist

So here ls -l show me a file that is a symbolic link to something that is not here.
No error at all.

if the file named 'myfile' exist on both directory you want to compare, that's the output of diff.

Code:

diff: /home/bob/myfile: No such file or directory

diff WILL follow links during a directory compare.

So i repeat . . . you have broken symlink.