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-   -   ? on symlinks (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/on-symlinks-233349/)

eroica 09-21-2004 09:12 AM

? on symlinks
 
hello,
I recently installed java and because my root partition is getting tight i wanted to install it in my home partition. unfortunetly the rpm gave me no choice and installed the jre in /usr/java. I then moved the java directory and all files to /home/Program_Files/java and issued the following command:
ln -s /home/Program_Files/java /usr
the directory /usr/java shows as pointing to /home/Program_Files/java but none of the subdirectories or files in them show anything about them being symlinks. Have I correctly set this up or are ther now two copies of /java on my computer? Java is working ok in my browser by the way...

alan

secesh 09-21-2004 09:45 AM

sure, i guess this could work around space constraints for you...

here's what's going on:
you moved the top directory -- that moves all the files and subdirectories under it, so
wherever the top directory is, the subdirectories and files are.

you symbolically linked at the top-directory level. now if you cd to /usr/java, you are not
working from /usr/java, because that directory does not exist, but you followed the link
to /home/Program_Files/java, and that is actually your working directory, though because
you followed the symbolic link to get there, it might look like it's /usr/java

linux symbolic links do not work like windows shortcuts. the symbolic links are all
but seamless in the file structure -- it only looks like there are two copies.


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