lndir - create a shadow directory of symbolic links to another directory tree
lndir [ -silent ] [ -ignorelinks ] [ -withrevinfo ]
fromdir [ todir ]
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 containing
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.
- -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
specially. The link created in todir will point back to the
corresponding (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.
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.