How to delete the dead links

shadkong · 04-18-2005, 09:59 PM

I have many dead link files in /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin, how to delete them quickly?

Bruce Hill · 04-19-2005, 12:19 AM

rm <name_of_symlink>

fuzzyash · 04-19-2005, 07:29 AM

Use mc on the command line, use "insert" to highlight the ones that you want to delete & hit F8. The dead ones will be quite obvious because they will be red.
If you are to use rm then use the -f arg, this will delete the files without asking you for conformation on every one, use carefully! See man rm for details.

fuzzyash · 04-19-2005, 07:32 AM

You could write a small script to do this but I don't have time to go into it now, sorry, besides, that would be a very good project for a newbie to start you off in the rewarding world of bash scripting!!

Not now, John! · 04-19-2005, 06:45 PM

find / -type l | xargs file | grep "broken" will give you a list of all broken symlinks.

bigrigdriver · 04-19-2005, 08:39 PM

There is a utility called symlinks. It can peruse your file system and report the dangling links (links which don't point to any file), and, if you so desire, remove them for you.