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)
Used for moving stuff around on a fileserver

18
By: svg
2009-05-25 08:54:36
basename dirname ln mv
12
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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); }
thebillywayne · 678 weeks and 2 days ago
It only works, if $2 is a directory, though.
jxy · 678 weeks and 2 days ago
Also does not play nice with files that have spaces or meta-characters in the names.
TheMightyBuzzard · 678 weeks and 2 days ago
Always _quote_ the variables!
jxy · 678 weeks and 1 day 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
TheMightyBuzzard · 678 weeks and 1 day 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.
adamskinner · 678 weeks ago
great suggestions for improving the function! i love this place!
thebillywayne · 678 weeks 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!
awoodby · 675 weeks and 5 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)
matthewbauer · 648 weeks and 4 days ago
lmv(){for a in ${@:1:$(expr $#-1)};do [ -e "$a" -a -e "${@:$#}" ] && mv "$a";"${@:$#}" && ln -s "${@:$#}"/"$(basename "$a")";"$(dirname "$a")";done}
matthewbauer · 648 weeks and 4 days ago
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AddieHolt · 49 weeks and 4 days ago
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Michael001 · 4 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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