How do I find all of the symlinks in a directory tree?
find
already looks recursively by default:
[15:21:53 ~]$ mkdir foo
[15:22:28 ~]$ cd foo
[15:22:31 ~/foo]$ mkdir bar
[15:22:35 ~/foo]$ cd bar
[15:22:36 ~/foo/bar]$ ln -s ../foo abc
[15:22:40 ~/foo/bar]$ cd ..
[15:22:47 ~/foo]$ ln -s foo abc
[15:22:52 ~/foo]$ find ./ -type l
.//abc
.//bar/abc
[15:22:57 ~/foo]$
This will recursively traverse the /path/to/folder
directory and list only the symbolic links:
ls -lR /path/to/folder | grep ^l
If your intention is to follow the symbolic links too, you should use your find
command but you should include the -L
option; in fact the find
man page says:
-L Follow symbolic links. When find examines or prints information
about files, the information used shall be taken from the prop‐
erties of the file to which the link points, not from the link
itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is unable to
examine the file to which the link points). Use of this option
implies -noleaf. If you later use the -P option, -noleaf will
still be in effect. If -L is in effect and find discovers a
symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search, the subdirec‐
tory pointed to by the symbolic link will be searched.
When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always
match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
to rather than the link itself (unless the symbolic link is bro‐
ken). Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates always
to return false.
Then try this:
find -L /var/www/ -type l
This will probably work: I found in the find
man page this diamond: if you are using the -type
option you have to change it to the -xtype
option:
l symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the
-follow option is in effect, unless the symbolic link is
broken. If you want to search for symbolic links when -L
is in effect, use -xtype.
Then:
find -L /var/www/ -xtype l
To see just the symlinks themselves, you can use
find -L /path/to/dir/ -xtype l
while if you want to see also which files they target, just append an ls
find -L /path/to/dir/ -xtype l -exec ls -al {} \;
One command, no pipes
find . -type l -ls
Explanation: find
from the current directory .
onwards all references of -type l
ink and list -ls
those in detail.
Plain and simple...
Expanding upon this answer, here are a couple more symbolic link related find
commands:
Find symbolic links to a specific target
find . -lname link_target
Note that link_target
is a pattern that may contain wildcard characters.
Find broken symbolic links
find -L . -type l -ls
The -L
option instructs find
to follow symbolic links, unless when broken.
Find & replace broken symbolic links
find -L . -type l -delete -exec ln -s new_target {} \;
More find examples
More find
examples can be found here: https://hamwaves.com/find/