How to create a symbolic link when target directory doesn't exist?

Question

Is there a flag you can add to the ln command to force the creation of the target directory structure (like mkdir -p).

Consider :

ln -s /Applications/'Sublime Text.app'/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/bin/

Which adds a symlink to the Sublime Text command line tool. But it fails if /usr/local/bin/ doesn't exist.

I've tried the -f 'force' flag but that doesn't help.

Do you need to test wether /usr/local/bin/ exists and create it if it doesn't before running the ln command or is there a fancier way to do it?

Answer 1

Try like this,

mkdir -p  /create_your_path/ && xargs ln -s /link_file_path/file /create_your_path/

Answer 2

Nope, there is no standard option to ln to create a missing target directory. Use install or mkdir -p before ln, perhaps in a helper script if you find you need this more than once.

#!/bin/bash -e
mkdir -p "${!#}"
exec ln -s "$@"

This is obviously not very robust, but feel free to embellish it with more sanity checks if you think you really find it useful.