creating soft links with the same name as the target file

Question

ln -s /dir1/file1   /dir2/file1

I'd like to create a softlink in target dir1 with same filename as source in dir2 How is this done without typing the file1 name over in the target path

Answer 1

It is very frustrating typing the name over and over again if you're creating several symlinks. Here's how I bypass retyping the name in Linux.

Here's my example file structure:

source/
 - file1.txt
 - file2.js
 - file3.js
target/

Create symlink to single file

~$ ln -sr source/file2.js target/

Result:

source/
 - file1.txt
 - file2.js
 - file3.js
target/
 - file2.js

Create symlink to all files with matching extension in source

~$ ln -sr source/*.js target/

Result:

source/
 - file1.txt
 - file2.js
 - file3.js
target/
 - file2.js
 - file3.js

Create symlinks to all files in source

~$ ln -sr source/* target/

Result:

source/
 - file1.txt
 - file2.js
 - file3.js
target/
 - file1.txt
 - file2.js
 - file3.js

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Relativity

Notice the r option. If you don't include -r the link source must be entered relative to the link location.

• ~$ ln -s ../source/file1.txt target/ Works
• ~/target$ ln -s ../source/file1.txt . Works
• ~$ ln -s source/file1.txt target/ Does not work

See also:

How to create symbolic links to all files (class of files) in a directory?

Linux man pages

Answer 2

You can do it with ln-only options:

ln -s -t /dir1 /dir2/file1