[SOLVED] Trying to write a command line script that will make symbolic links

dave247 · 10-20-2010, 11:38 AM

Hey I am trying to figure something out as part of something else I am going to do. I was just wondering the easiest and quickest way to run a loop at the Linux command line which will make x amount of symbolic links when I need them.

I am using Debian 5.

I figure its something as easy as ~# foreach statement, then I just do a loop with the command to make a sym link.

thanks for any input. I am also googling it now too. thanks

grail · 10-20-2010, 08:30 PM

Well on such a vague question it is difficult to assist. Are we looking for specific names? Do we not care and just a for loop counting from 1 to x is enough?

Perhaps you could flesh out more of what you require and also some examples would be nice

dave247 · 10-20-2010, 09:46 PM

sorry, I didnt mean to be so vague. Say I want to make a sym link for a program or file in my home directory. Say I have 10 files like pics and documents in there. I want to run a script to go through and simply make a sym link for each file within my /home and have all the links be on my desktop.

thanks

grail · 10-21-2010, 02:58 AM

Well a while or a for loop could do the job. The choice of which to go for, in my opinion, is dependent on how many different types of files there are, ie the
extensions.
So if all files or only a couple:

Code:

for files in ~/*
do
    ln -sfv "$files" "/path/to/link"
done

If you change * to *.txt you get all txt files. The other downside here is that if you have a subfolder in the folder then it will get renamed to unless you
test that item is a file (will leave to you to find the test)

The other option would be a while loop and a find. This has the power of being able to use find's abilities to limit what items are found.
Example:

Code:

while read -r files
do
    ln -sfv "$files" "/path/to/link"
done< <(find $HOME -maxdepth 1 -type f)

Again I will leave you to do man find and see what options you have

dave247 · 10-21-2010, 12:21 PM

grail: PERFECT dude thanks. I guess I was really wondering how to do that for loop think which is obvious now... thats part of bash, correct?

thanks again

grail · 10-21-2010, 12:24 PM

Quote:

thats part of bash, correct?

Yes both are bash constructs.