Symbolic link problem

[William M. Quarles]

Deron Meranda wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:52:03 -0500, William M. Quarles <quarlewm at jmu.edu> wrote:
> 
>>[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
> 
> 
> You didn't specify what are symlinks and what are your directories. 
> Perhaps the output of an "ls -l" might help.

What I am trying to remove above is a symlink.

[root at resistance plugins]# ls -l ns7/quarlewm
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 15 Nov 26 01:42 ns7/quarlewm -> /home/quarlewm/

> Also, please try using /bin/rm as it appears your "rm" is currently an
> alias or a shell function and therefore we don't see all the options. 
> (If you enter "type rm" you'll see what the shell thinks rm really
> is).

[root at resistance SPECS]# type rm
rm is aliased to `rm -i'

> And another thing to be aware of is that putting a "/" at the end of a
> pathname can change how it is interpreted, especially with symlinks
> involved.  So, what happens if you do "rm ns7/quarlewm" instead?

You're right.  I thought that I tried that.  IT WORKED!

[root at resistance plugins]# /bin/rm ns7/quarlewm
[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."
> 
> Either remove the existing symlink first, or also supply the options
> "-n -f", as in,
> 
>    ln -n -f -s new_target symlink_name

[root at resistance plugins]# ln -nsf 
/usr/java/jdk1.5.0/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so ns7
[root at resistance plugins]#

Fabulous!

Thank you,
William