doc/user/rmsym.org

   1 * rmsym - Symlink deleter
   2 #+TITLE: rmsym - Symlink deleter
   3 #+AUTHOR: Steven Baltakatei Sandoval
   4 #+DATE:2023-02-20
   5 #+EMAIL:baltakatei@gmail.com
   6 #+LANGUAGE: en
   7 #+OPTIONS: toc:nil
   8
   9 Created by [[https://baltakatei.com][Steven Baltakatei Sandoval]] on
  10 2023-02-20T18:43+00
  11 under a [[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/][CC BY-SA 4.0]] (🅭🅯🄎4.0) license and last updated on
  12 2023-02-20T18:43+00
  13
  14 ** Summary
  15 ~rmsym~ is a Bash script which deletes symbolic links specified by
  16 positional arguments.
  17
  18 ** Versions
  19 | Version | Description                                                    |
  20 |---------+----------------------------------------------------------------|
  21 |   0.0.1 | Initial version. Does not accept or pass on arguments to ~rm~. |
  22 |         |                                                                |
  23
  24 ** Background
  25 I needed a script that would let me quickly delete only symlinks if I
  26 were to provide it with a mix of paths of files, directories, or
  27 symlinks; specifically, I want to be able to create music playlists
  28 that any music player can parse; most music players can recursively
  29 scan directories and a directory tree of symlinks would reduce the
  30 need to maintain multiple copies of music files on the same file
  31 system. However, in order to assure myself that when I prune symlinks
  32 that I don't delete actual files targeted by the symlinks, I need a
  33 program that will only delete symlinks.
  34
  35 Bash supports testing whether a path is a symlink or not via the ~-h~
  36 test. For example, here is a simple Bash script that will report
  37 whether a symlink is present at ~$HOME/foo.txt~ or not.
  38
  39 #+begin_example
  40 #!/bin/bash
  41 path_myfile="$HOME/foo.txt";
  42 if [[ -h "$path_myfile" ]]; then
  43   echo "STATUS:Is a symlink:$path_myfile";
  44 else
  45   echo "STATUS:Is not a symlink:$path_myfile";
  46 fi;
  47 #+end_example
  48
  49 ** Reference
  50 - "Bash Reference Manual", Section: "[[https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Bash-Conditional-Expressions][6.4 Bash Conditional Expressions]]". gnu.org.