How to get full path of original file of a soft symbolic link?

Question

I want to scp a file to a server. The file is a symbolic link, and actually I want to do is copying the source file. Anyway I don't want to track source file's path manually, because it can be replaced. If I can get source file's absolute path, i can sep with it. How can I get the path?

Answer 1

Try this line:

readlink -f `which command`

If command is in your $PATH variable , otherwise you need to specify the path you know.

Answer 2

Stat will give you this information:

$ stat current
  File: `current' -> `/home/user/releases/build/'
  ...

Answer 3

Under Linux, readlink reads the contents of a symlink, and readlink -f follows symlinks to symlinks to symlinks, etc., until it finds something that isn't a symlink.

This isn't necessary for scp though: scp always follows symlinks (it always copies file content, ignoring metadata except that -p preserves file times and modes when possible).

If you find yourself disappointed by what metadata scp can and can't preserve, I suggest using rsync. With no option, rsync copies file contents ignoring metadata. The commonly used option -a preserves all garden-variety metadata (times, symbolic links, permissions and ownership), and there are options to preserve exotic metadata like ACLs and hard links.