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man pages section 1: User Commands

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Updated: July 2017
 
 

lndir (1)

Name

lndir - tory tree

Synopsis

/usr/bin/lndir [ -silent ] [ -ignorelinks ] [ -withrevinfo ] fromdir  [
todir ]

Description

LNDIR(1)                    General Commands Manual                   LNDIR(1)



NAME
       lndir  -  create a shadow directory of symbolic links to another direc-
       tory tree

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/bin/lndir [ -silent ] [ -ignorelinks ] [ -withrevinfo ] 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 con-
       taining 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 directory).

       Note that BitKeeper, CVS, CVS.adm,  .git,  .hg,  RCS,  SCCS,  and  .svn
       directories  are  shadowed  only if the -withrevinfo flag is specified.
       Files with names ending in ~ are never 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  subdirectory  as  it
              descends  into  it.   The -silent option suppresses these status
              messages.

       -ignorelinks
              Causes the program to not treat symbolic links in  fromdir  spe-
              cially.  The link created in todir will point back to the corre-
              sponding (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.

       -withrevinfo
              Causes any source control manager  subdirectories  (those  named
              BitKeeper,  CVS,  CVS.adm,  .git, .hg, RCS, SCCS, or .svn) to be
              treated as any other directory, rather than ignored.

DIAGNOSTICS
       The program displays the name of each subdirectory it enters,  followed
       by a colon.  The -silent option suppresses 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 correct file, the
       program prints the link name and the location where it does point.

SEE ALSO
       ln(1).


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE         |      ATTRIBUTE VALUE        |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability                 |file/lndir                   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability          |Uncommitted                  |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+



X Version 11                      lndir 1.0.3                         LNDIR(1)