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, RCS, SCCS, .svn, CVS and CVS.adm directories are
shadowed only if the -withrevinfo flag is specified.
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.
OPTIONS
-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 BitKeeper, RCS, SCCS, .svn, CVS and CVS.adm subdirectories to be
treated as any other directory, rather than ignored.
DIAGNOSTICS
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.
