How do i find the file where symlink points to?

[Arkady]

I've read some tutorials, but have not stumbled on this,
so..

how do i find the file to which a symbolic link points to



thanks

[g00rkha75]

Hi,

Just run this command:

[root@greg named]# ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      22 Jul  3 00:12 grub.conf -> ../boot/grub/grub.conf

From the output lrwxrwxrwx, the l means that its the soft link grub.conf pointing the real one which is located in ../boot/grub/grub/conf
For finding the file which it points to run this

find / -name grub.conf -print[/B] or [B]# locate grub.conf

Hope it helps.

Rgds,
g

[Freston]

And the 'file' command does the same thing:

file /path/to/symlink
symlink: symbolic link to `/example/targetfile'

[scm]

And the -L option to ls will unroll the link and give you stats on the real file.

[BryanFRitt]

try out the 'readlink' command.
'readlink' will "display value of a symbolic link on standard output."

If you really just want the link and nothing else you can add '-n'
"-n, --no-newline do not output the trailing newline"