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ysap
Asked: 2012-01-16 15:49:33 +0800 CST

Changing symlinks does not work for directories

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In order to change a symbolic link, one can use the -fs option to eliminate the need to unlink or delete the old link first. However, trying to do so on directories does not seem to work:

$ mkdir dir1
$ mkdir dir2
$ ln -s  dir1 lnk
$ ln -sf dir2 lnk
$ ll
......... lnk -> dir1
$

Why so? Is there another option to do this with directories the same as with files?

10.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    By default, if you pass a directory (or a symlink to a directory) as the second argument to the ln command, it will create a link inside that directory with the same name as the first argument. So with the set of commands you have issued, you should find a symlink named dir2 inside dir1.

    You can change this behaviour using the -T option:

    -T, --no-target-directory
       treat LINK_NAME as a normal file

    If you pass this option in your second ln invocation, then it should overwrite the lnk symlink rather than creating a new symlink inside the first directory.

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