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So using ln -s to make a link will make either a relative link (link->../file) or an absolute link (link->/home/user/dir1/file).

But sometimes I don't want to type the entire absolute path, but still need an absolute link. Maybe I want to link link->../dir2/file but I really want link->/home/user/dir/another dir/a third dir/dir6/dir2/long named dir/dir/dir2/file. That's a lot of typing.

What's an easier way to do that then this?

ln -s "/home/user/dir/another dir/a third dir/dir6/dir2/long named dir/dir/dir2/file" link

Thanks, my fingers appreciate it.

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  • One way to avoid typing too much is to use «tab». It will still be more typing than you are hopping for. But also works in more situations.
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jul 30, 2018 at 9:06

1 Answer 1

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Okay, I found one way to make it work easily:

ln -s `realpath ../dir2/file` link       #not perfect

It's not perfect - $( ... ) is preferred to `...` for command substitution, and there's a problem with filenames with spaces - the "double quotes" fix that while allowing command substitution to proceed. So here is an updated answer:

ln -s "$(realpath ../dir2/file)" link

So if I want the filename to be the same,

ln -s "$(realpath ../dir2/file)" .
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  • Note: $(command) is preferred over back ticks, and see symlinks tool.
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jul 27, 2018 at 15:36
  • Is symlinks a windows tool?
    – Peter Kay
    Jul 29, 2018 at 19:05
  • No it is command line.
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jul 30, 2018 at 9:01
  • Wow, I am not finding any documentation for it anywhere. Could you provide a link?
    – Peter Kay
    Jul 30, 2018 at 15:40
  • on Debian, install with apt install sysmlinks. It says that it was written my “Mark Lord”. Hope that helps. Also see man page linux.die.net/man/8/symlinks
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jul 30, 2018 at 19:08

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