List all symbolic links in current directory

\ls -1 | xargs -l readlink

For those who don't have the symlinks command, you can use readlink. This command is not straightforward because readlink is very picky. The backslash in front of 'ls' means not to use an alias (e.g. color escape codes from an aliased 'ls' could mess up readlink), and the -1 (one) means to print the entries separated by newlines. xargs -l (the letter L) means to process each input separated by newlines as separate commands.

By: TeacherTiger

2009-11-23 19:28:03

xargs readlink

12 Alternatives + Submit Alt

List all symbolic links in current directory

Tested with GNU and BSD ls. Show Sample Output

ls -la | grep ^l

gatopan · 2014-08-11 03:06:48 5

List all symbolic links in current directory

With this version, you can list all symlinks in the current directory (no subdirectories), and have it list both the link and the target. Show Sample Output

ls -l `find ~ -maxdepth 1 -type l -print`

skittleys · 2015-01-04 02:36:47 4

List all symbolic links in current directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find /was61 -type l

djenal · 2012-07-18 18:19:37 2
List all symbolic links in current directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find /was61 -type l

djenal · 2012-07-18 18:20:11 2
List all symbolic links in current directory
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find /was61 -type l

djenal · 2012-07-18 18:20:13 2

What Others Think

The -1 (one) is unnecessary as ls, when piped, outputs one file per line by default. If you were going to use this method to get links only, ls | xargs [etc] would suffice.

sudopeople · 706 weeks and 3 days ago

Correct about the -1 (one), but incorrect about the -l (upper case L). xargs requires the -l to process each line separately.

TeacherTiger · 706 weeks and 3 days ago

$ ls ~ | xargs -1 readlink xargs: invalid option -- '1' $ ls ~ | xargs -L1 readlink

cfajohnson · 706 weeks and 3 days ago

Of course I meant lower case L.

TeacherTiger · 706 weeks and 3 days ago

Neat command. Looking at the xargs manpage, -l (lowercase L) is apparently deprecated in favor of -L which now requires an argument.

bwoodacre · 706 weeks and 3 days ago

rahimhh21 · 39 weeks and 6 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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