Linking Automation

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

Hi,
How to link the files automatically in linux on daily basis ?

For example :
I have file abc.20130911.txt

ln -s source/ abc.20130911.txt  dest/abc.20130911.txt

But in my machine files will be generate with date time stamp every day, without manual linking every day is there any possibility to link the files with the date time stamp automatically which generate latest ?

If any help that would be great thanks !!!

2

Do you want ALL the files to be linked or just the newest one?
You can obviously run a script that would check all the files in the source dest if appropriate file exist in dest dir and if not, create a link.

3

Try this:

for file in src/*
do
  filename=$(basename $file)
  [ ! -f dest/$filename ] && ln -s $file dest/$filename
done
4

I would like to link the files which are available in the source location when it arrives doesn't matter. Once the file available in the source location it should be linked to the specified destination location, file can arrives today or tomorrow and so on. Files can be recognized abc.20130912.txt and abc.20130913.txt for today and tomorrow so on.

I don't want to run any script, it should be one time activity.
For example : for today's file i can link as " ln -s source/abc.20130912.txt dest/abc.20130912.txt " on the same lines is there any way that we can link as below "ln -s source/abc.$(date + %Y%m%d).txt dest/abc.$(date + %Y%m%d).txt" for all the days???

Note: I have around 300 files to link and with different names. every day same files will be created with different date stamp.

5

Symbolic links cannot automagically create themselves. Something has to create them.

If all you want is the same folder in a different place, why not symbolically link the entire directory instead of its individual contents?

# Create an empty folder 'a'
$ mkdir a
# Create the empty file 'b' inside it
$ touch a/b
# 'newdir' is a symbolic link to 'a'
$ ln -s a newdir
# running ls on it shows a's contents
$ ls newdir

b

# If you create a new file in a, it shows up in newdir too
$ touch a/c
$ ls newdir

b
c

# If you create a new file in newdir, it shows up in a too
$ touch newdir/d
$ ls a

b
c
d

$

It's also possible to do something similar with mount tricks, but that's likey overkill.