Suppose I have a file and a folder in my working directory:
>> tree
.
├── my-file
└── my-folder
To move my-file to my-folder and preserve a my-file in the original location with a symlink to the new location I have to do it in a few steps:
Move:
>> mv my-file my-folder
>> tree
.
└── my-folder
└── my-file
Create symbolic link in the original location:
>> ln -s my-folder/my-file
>> tree
.
├── my-file -> my-folder/my-file
└── my-folder
└── my-file
Is there a way to do it in one step? (and for multiple files?)
Something like the following:
>> tree
.
├── my-file
└── my-folder
>> move-and-create-symlink-command-??
>> tree
.
├── my-file -> my-folder/my-file
└── my-folder
└── my-file
>Solution :
One way as mentioned in the comment by pmf; if you want the linking to only execute if the moving succeeded, connect both using &&. Other way is you can always create your custom commands whenever you want. You can create a custom shell function to perform the move and symlink creation in one step. Add the following function to your shell configuration file (e.g., ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc generally for MAC):
move_and_symlink() {
mv "$1" "$2"
ln -s "${2%/}/$1" .
}
Then, source your shell configuration file to make the new function available:
source ~/.bashrc # or source ~/.zshrc based on your requirement
Now, you can use the move_and_symlink command to move a file and create a symlink in one step:
tree
.
├── my-file
└── my-folder
move_and_symlink my-file my-folder
tree
.
├── my-file -> my-folder/my-file
└── my-folder
└── my-file
The above custom function takes two arguments: the source file and the destination directory. It first moves the file to the destination directory using mv and then creates a symlink to the new location in the original location with ln -s.
EDIT(For operating on multiple files h/t tripleee):
The above function can be amended for handling multiple files:
move_and_symlink() {
# Get the last argument as the destination directory
dest_dir="${!#}"
# Iterate through all arguments except the last one (the source files)
for ((i=1; i<$#; i++)); do
src_file="${!i}"
mv "$src_file" "$dest_dir"
ln -s "$dest_dir/$src_file" .
done
}
# Usage: move_and_symlink file1 file2 file3 destination_folder