LNDIR(1)LNDIR(1)NAMElndir - create a shadow directory of symbolic links to
another directory tree
SYNOPSISlndir [ -silent ] [ -ignorelinks ] fromdir [ todir ]
DESCRIPTION
The lndir program makes a shadow copy todir of a directory
tree fromdir, except that the shadow is not populated with
real files but instead with symbolic links pointing at the
real files in the fromdir directory tree. This is usually
useful for maintaining source code for different machine
architectures. You create a shadow directory containing
links to the real source, which you will have usually
mounted from a remote machine. You can build in the
shadow tree, and the object files will be in the shadow
directory, while the source files in the shadow directory
are just symlinks to the real files.
This scheme has the advantage that if you update the
source, you need not propagate the change to the other
architectures by hand, since all source in all shadow
directories are symlinks to the real thing: just cd to the
shadow directory and recompile away.
The todir argument is optional and defaults to the current
directory. The fromdir argument may be relative (e.g.,
../src) and is relative to todir (not the current direc-
tory).
Note that RCS, SCCS, CVS and CVS.adm directories are not
shadowed.
If you add files, simply run lndir again. New files will
be silently added. Old files will be checked that they
have the correct link.
Deleting files is a more painful problem; the symlinks
will just point into never never land.
If a file in fromdir is a symbolic link, lndir will make
the same link in todir rather than making a link back to
the (symbolic link) entry in fromdir. The -ignorelinks
flag changes this behavior.
OPTIONS-silent
Normally lndir outputs the name of each subdirec-
tory as it descends into it. The -silent option
suppresses these status messages.
-ignorelinks
Causes the program to not treat symbolic links in
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fromdir specially. The link created in todir will
point back to the corresponding (symbolic link)
file in fromdir. If the link is to a directory,
this is almost certainly the wrong thing.
This option exists mostly to emulate the behavior
the C version of lndir had in X11R6. Its use is
not recommended.
DIAGNOSTICS
The program displays the name of each subdirectory it
enters, followed by a colon. The -silent option sup-
presses these messages.
A warning message is displayed if the symbolic link cannot
be created. The usual problem is that a regular file of
the same name already exists.
If the link already exists but doesn't point to the cor-
rect file, the program prints the link name and the loca-
tion where it does point.
BUGS
The patch program gets upset if it cannot change the
files. You should never run patch from a shadow directory
anyway.
You need to use something like
find todir -type l -print | xargs rm
to clear out all files before you can relink (if fromdir
moved, for instance). Something like
find . \! -type d -print
will find all files that are not directories.
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