Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am trying to write a script that finds directories that are symbolically linked to accounts and then displays where that symbolic link is.
Is there a function of perl that displays where directories are linked?

I just want to avoid using something like:

open (SYMDIR, "cd /some/directory | pwd |");
print SYMDIR;

Well, actually there are other ways than that... But anyway, any help would be appreciated =)

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Symbolic Links
by grinder (Bishop) on Aug 02, 2001 at 20:39 UTC
    You want to investigate the readlink function.

     my $dir = readlink( '/some/directory' );

    If you have symbolic links pointing to other symbolic links you will have to walk down the chain:

    while( -l $dir ) {
  $dir = readlink $dir
}

    [download]

    or more concise:

      1 while( -l $dir and $dir=readlink($dir))

    --

    g r i n d e r
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
[reply]
Re: Symbolic Links
by nardo (Friar) on Aug 02, 2001 at 20:37 UTC
    You can use readlink to read where a symlink points, but it won't necessarily be the final destination since it can point to another symlink.
[reply]

Back to Seekers of Perl Wisdom