Replacing Symbolic Links with Original Files

The goal is to replace symlinks with the actual files. When is this necessary? When we need to get rid of symlinks by replacing them with the original files they point to. This may be needed when we are moving our files to another storage medium or to another location.

The command that does this:

find . -type l -exec cp --remove-destination $(readlink -f {}) {} \;

Breakdown:

1. find . -type l:

   • Finds all symbolic links (-type l) in the current directory (.) and its subdirectories.

2. -exec ... \;:

   • Executes the specified command (cp --remove-destination $(readlink -f {}) {}) for each found item.

3. readlink -f {}:

   • Returns the absolute path of the file that the symbolic link {} points to.

4. cp --remove-destination $(readlink -f {}) {}:

   • Copies the real file that the symbolic link ($(readlink -f {})) points to, back to the same position where the symlink is located ({}).
   • The --remove-destination option removes the target file before copying. This is important to replace the symlink with the real file (otherwise, cp will not be able to overwrite the link).

What happens as a result:

• Symbolic links are replaced with their target files.
• This is useful if you want to get rid of symbolic links by replacing them with the content of the files they point to.

Example:

• Suppose you have the following structure:

  ./file.txt
  ./link -> file.txt

  After running the command:

  find . -type l -exec cp --remove-destination $(readlink -f {}) {} \;

  the structure will become:

  ./file.txt
  ./link (this is no longer a link, but a copy of file.txt)