Symbolic link problem
Paul Pianta
pantz at lqt.ca
Fri Nov 26 17:07:22 UTC 2004
On Fri, 2004-11-26 at 01:52 -0500, William M. Quarles wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I keep having this problem with symbolic links to directories on my
> computer. Once they are set up, if I try to remove them, this paradox
> occurs:
>
> [root at resistance plugins]# rm ns7/quarlewm/
> rm: remove directory `ns7/quarlewm/'? y
> rm: cannot remove directory `ns7/quarlewm/': Is a directory
> [root at resistance plugins]# rm -Rf ns7/quarlewm/
> rm: cannot remove `ns7/quarlewm/': Not a directory
> [root at resistance plugins]#
>
> I also cannot place force a different symbolic link in it's place, as it
> just places the new link inside of the "directory."
>
> Does anyone know what the underlying problem is, and any possible ways
> of solving it or circumventing it?
Ouch - I got bitten by this once upon a time and feel great that I can
help someone else out with it.
The secret is ... don't use the / at the end of the directory in your rm
command.
When you use bash auto-complete with the 'tab' key it will add the / and
this is what is messing you up. To remove a symbolic link to a directory
you need to remove just the name - eg. 'rm quarlewm' and not 'rm
quarlewm/'
HTH
pantz
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