Symbolic link problem
William M. Quarles
quarlewm at jmu.edu
Sat Nov 27 14:50:16 UTC 2004
Paul Pianta wrote:
> On Fri, 2004-11-26 at 01:52 -0500, William M. Quarles wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I keep having this problem with symbolic links to directories on my
>>computer. Once they are set up, if I try to remove them, this paradox
>>occurs:
>>
>>[root at resistance plugins]# rm ns7/quarlewm/
>>rm: remove directory `ns7/quarlewm/'? y
>>rm: cannot remove directory `ns7/quarlewm/': Is a directory
>>[root at resistance plugins]# rm -Rf ns7/quarlewm/
>>rm: cannot remove `ns7/quarlewm/': Not a directory
>>[root at resistance plugins]#
>>
>>I also cannot place force a different symbolic link in it's place, as it
>>just places the new link inside of the "directory."
>>
>>Does anyone know what the underlying problem is, and any possible ways
>>of solving it or circumventing it?
>
>
> Ouch - I got bitten by this once upon a time and feel great that I can
> help someone else out with it.
>
> The secret is ... don't use the / at the end of the directory in your rm
> command.
>
> When you use bash auto-complete with the 'tab' key it will add the / and
> this is what is messing you up. To remove a symbolic link to a directory
> you need to remove just the name - eg. 'rm quarlewm' and not 'rm
> quarlewm/'
>
> HTH
>
> pantz
>
Thanks pantz!
William
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