CentOS - Mar 2008 - Overwrite target of ln

Hi all,

Sorry if this seems too basic.

But is there a way to overwrite the target of a symbolic link without
first deleting the symlink itself?

For example, if I have this:

public_html -> releases/b2b-20080228

... and there's a new update, I can then just do the following:

$ ln releases/site-latest public_html

I tried using the -f option but it doesn't seem to work as expected.

-- 
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 07:20:50AM +0800, Matt Arnilo S. Baluyos (Mailing Lists)
alleged:
> Hi all,
> 
> Sorry if this seems too basic.
> 
> But is there a way to overwrite the target of a symbolic link without
> first deleting the symlink itself?
> 
> For example, if I have this:
> 
> public_html -> releases/b2b-20080228
> 
> ... and there's a new update, I can then just do the following:
> 
> $ ln releases/site-latest public_html
> 
> I tried using the -f option but it doesn't seem to work as expected.
Your example doesn't have -s?  I assume that was a typo?

Anyways, ln -sf does exactly what you describe.

$ ls -l foo
lrwxrwxrwx  1 garrick rds 3 Mar  4 15:24 foo -> bar
$ ln -sf bar2 foo
$ ls -l foo
lrwxrwxrwx  1 garrick rds 4 Mar  4 15:24 foo -> bar2

-- 
Garrick Staples, GNU/Linux HPCC SysAdmin
University of Southern California

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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On 05/03/2008, Garrick Staples <garrick at usc.edu>
wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 07:20:50AM +0800, Matt Arnilo S. Baluyos (Mailing
Lists) alleged:
>
> > Hi all,
>  >
>  > Sorry if this seems too basic.
>  >
>  > But is there a way to overwrite the target of a symbolic link without
>  > first deleting the symlink itself?
>  >
>  > For example, if I have this:
>  >
>  > public_html -> releases/b2b-20080228
>  >
>  > ... and there's a new update, I can then just do the following:
>  >
>  > $ ln releases/site-latest public_html
>  >
>  > I tried using the -f option but it doesn't seem to work as
expected.
>
>
> Your example doesn't have -s?  I assume that was a typo?
>
>  Anyways, ln -sf does exactly what you describe.
>
>  $ ls -l foo
>  lrwxrwxrwx  1 garrick rds 3 Mar  4 15:24 foo -> bar
>  $ ln -sf bar2 foo
>  $ ls -l foo
>  lrwxrwxrwx  1 garrick rds 4 Mar  4 15:24 foo -> bar2
Hi,

Sorry. That was a typo.

I have just tried using a target as a file and it does seem to work
with the -f option. It's only when the target is a directory that it
fails:

$ ll
drwxrwxr-x 2 matt matt 4096 Mar  4 14:34 dir1
drwxrwxr-x 2 matt matt 4096 Mar  4 14:34 dir2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 matt matt    4 Mar  4 14:35 link -> dir1

$ ln -s dir2 link

$ ll
drwxrwxr-x 2 matt matt 4096 Mar  4 14:35 dir1
drwxrwxr-x 2 matt matt 4096 Mar  4 14:34 dir2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 matt matt    4 Mar  4 14:35 link -> dir1

-- 
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.