How do I change a soft link in Linux?

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Then, there are three ways to change the symlink:

  1. Use ln with -f force and even for directories -n (inode could get reused): ln -sfn /some/new/path linkname.
  2. Remove the symlink and create a new one (even for directories): rm linkname; ln -s /some/new/path linkname.

Many Linux file managers offer the ability to create symbolic links graphically. If yours does, you can generally do this by right-clicking a folder or file and selecting “Copy”, and then right-clicking inside another folder and selecting “Make Link”, “Paste as Link”, or a similarly named option.

What happens to symlink if we rename a file ? Once you move a file to which symlink points, symlink is broken aka dangling symlink. You have to delete it and create new one if you want to point to the new filename.

To change the owner of a symbolic link, use the -h option. Otherwise, the ownership of the linked file will be changed.

To remove a symbolic link, use either the rm or unlink command followed by the name of the symlink as an argument. When removing a symbolic link that points to a directory do not append a trailing slash to the symlink name.

A symbolic link, also termed a soft link, is a special kind of file that points to another file, much like a shortcut in Windows or a Macintosh alias. Unlike a hard link, a symbolic link does not contain the data in the target file. It simply points to another entry somewhere in the file system.

A hard link is a file that points to the same underlying inode, as another file. In case you delete one file, it removes one link to the underlying inode. Whereas a symbolic link (also known as soft link) is a link to another filename in the filesystem.

You can use grep with ls command to list all the symbolic links present in the current directory.
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To view the symbolic links in a directory:

  1. Open a terminal and move to that directory.
  2. Type the command: ls -la. …
  3. The files that start with l are your symbolic link files.

UNIX Symbolic link or Symlink Tips

  1. Use ln -nfs to update the soft link. …
  2. Use pwd in a combination of UNIX soft link to find out the actual path your soft link is pointing out. …
  3. To find out all UNIX soft link and hard link in any directory execute following command “ls -lrt | grep “^l” “.

To create a symbolic link pass the -s option to the ln command followed by the target file and the name of link. In the following example a file is symlinked into the bin folder. In the following example a mounted external drive is symlinked into a home directory.

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