Finding symbolic links and their targets

Symbolic links are very common in Unix-like systems. There are various reasons you want to use them, ranging from convenient access to maintaining different versions of the same library or program. This recipe will discuss the basic techniques of handling symbolic links.

Symbolic links are just pointers to other files, they are similar in function to aliases in Mac OS X or shortcuts in Windows. When symbolic links are removed, they will not cause any harm to the original file.

How to do it...

The following steps will help you handle symbolic links:

1. We can create a symbolic link as follows:

   $ ln -s target symbolic_link_name
   

   For example:

   $ ln -l -s /var/www/ ~/web
   

   This creates a symbolic link (called web) in the current user's home directory, which points to /var/www/.

2. To verify that the link was created, run the following command:

   $ ls -l web
   lrwxrwxrwx 1 slynux slynux 8 2010-06-25 21:34 web -> /var/www
   

   web -> /var/www specifies that web points to...