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Site by David Winterbottom (user root).

Relocate a file or directory, but keep it accessible on the old location throug a simlink.

Terminal - Relocate a file or directory, but keep it accessible on the old location throug a simlink.
mv $1 $2 && ln -s $2/$(basename $1) $(dirname $1)
2009-05-25 08:54:36
User: svg
Functions: basename dirname ln mv
16
Up
Down
Relocate a file or directory, but keep it accessible on the old location throug a simlink.

Used for moving stuff around on a fileserver

Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

If you can do better, submit your command here.

What others think

sweet. i've made it a function in all my .bash_profiles.

function lmv(){

[ -e $1 -a -e $2 ] && mv $1 $2 && ln -s $2/$(basename $1) $(dirname $1);

}

Comment by thebillywayne 37 weeks and 1 day ago

It only works, if $2 is a directory, though.

Comment by jxy 37 weeks ago

Also does not play nice with files that have spaces or meta-characters in the names.

Comment by TheMightyBuzzard 37 weeks ago

Always _quote_ the variables!

Comment by jxy 36 weeks and 6 days ago

from AlvinaSimpson over on lifehacker.com:

lmv() { [ -e "$1" -a -e "$2" ] && mv "$1" "$2" && ln -s "$2"/"$(basename "$1")" "$(dirname "$1")"; }

Me, I'd add one more bit and say go from

[ -e "$1" -a -e "$2" ]

to

[ -e "$1" -a -d "$2" ]

and from

mv "$1" "$2"

to

mv "$1" "$2"/

That should take care of any accidental file overwrites from trying to use wildcards with this command as it requires $2 be a directory and appends a trailing / so we don't accidentally try to overwrite the directory $2

Comment by TheMightyBuzzard 36 weeks and 6 days ago

By default, you shouldn't be trying to symlink when you do this; you only need to use symlinks when you're going from one physical drive to another.

The files that we see in the filesystem are pointers to the actual data on the drive. By creating a hard link, we have two real pointers to the same data; if one is removed, the other exists still, and the data is still "found" by the filesystem. If the original hardlink disappears but the symlink still exists, the symlink won't work.

When trying to do a "safe move" using links, hard links is what you should use.

Comment by adamskinner 36 weeks and 6 days ago

great suggestions for improving the function! i love this place!

Comment by thebillywayne 36 weeks and 5 days ago

Any recommendations to make this usable on directories with spaces or special characters? I want to use it to relocate bittorrent files regularly to another disk and they rarely have proper filenames.

by recommendations I mean a simpler way than writing/stealing code to escape all the special characters. I'm lazy and slow!

Comment by awoodby 34 weeks and 3 days ago
lmv(){for a in ${@:1:$(expr $#-1)};do [ -e "$a" -a -e "${@:$#:1}" ] && mv "$a";"${@:$#:1}" && ln -s "${@:$#:1}"/"$(basename "$a")";"$(dirname "$a")";done}

for multiple folders (e.g. lmv files/* newfolder would move file/* to newfolder while symlinking them)

Comment by matthewbauer 7 weeks and 2 days ago
lmv(){for a in ${@:1:$(expr $#-1)};do [ -e "$a" -a -e "${@:$#}" ] && mv "$a";"${@:$#}" && ln -s "${@:$#}"/"$(basename "$a")";"$(dirname "$a")";done}
Comment by matthewbauer 7 weeks and 2 days ago

Your point of view

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