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Old 01-01-2014, 04:01 PM   #1
bibiki
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Registered: Jul 2010
Posts: 19

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removing a soft link


Hi there,
I made a soft link to my /bin/ directory and now I want to remove it.
I created it as follows:
ln -s /bin/ binlink

neither "rm binlink" nor "unlink binlink" remove it. rm binlink yields the complaint that binlink is a directory, whereas rmdir and unlink say that it is not a Directory and refuse to remove it.

What do I do? Also, I am afraid of the sensitivity of the case since binlink is a link to my /bin/ folder.

ANy help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. I am going through a book on Linux, and I created the link just for testing purposes.
 
Old 01-01-2014, 04:11 PM   #2
doughyi8u
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Registered: Apr 2010
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have you tried using the -rf flag to rm?
Code:
rm -rf
 
Old 01-01-2014, 04:50 PM   #3
bibiki
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Registered: Jul 2010
Posts: 19

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are you sure this won't remove everything from my /bin/ folder? I have not tried it? I'd rather not take chances and see what happens. what do you think?
P.S. I actually tried rm-r, but not -f. To no avail....
 
Old 01-01-2014, 05:43 PM   #4
rknichols
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Plain old rm should work just fine. Do you perhaps have rm aliased to something strange? Try using a backslash prefix to bypass the alias:
Code:
\rm binlink
 
Old 01-01-2014, 05:53 PM   #5
astrogeek
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As rknichols says, plain old rm will do it.

But be sure to NOT include the trailing '/' which will trigger the directory warning as it refers to the /bin/ directory itself - and yes rm -rf binlink/ WILL remove everythign from the /bin directory - DON'T DO THAT!.

Code:
rm binlink/ - refers to the directory linked, i.e. /bin/

rm binlink - refers to the symlink itself

Last edited by astrogeek; 01-01-2014 at 05:55 PM.
 
2 members found this post helpful.
Old 01-01-2014, 06:03 PM   #6
bibiki
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Jul 2010
Posts: 19

Original Poster
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rm binlink (wiithout the trailing slash worked fine).

I used tab for autocompletion of the link name and it adds the trailing slash, that's why it did not work.
Thanks a lot everyone, doughyi8u, rknichols, astrogeek.
 
  


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