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While I was trying to compile a C shared object library, I accidentally created two symbolic links which point to each other. Is there a way to get rid of them without nuking the whole directory? I read that the only way to break a symbolic link is to delete the file it points to, but I'm sure there must be another way. Thanks for the help.

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Then delete the file it po... oh god. How did you manage this? :P – Phoshi Feb 2 '10 at 15:32
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It is easy to do, and even easier to fix. Simlinks point at a filename, and the target filename does not even have to exist. And rm removes the simlink, not the file it points to. – Justin Smith Feb 2 '10 at 21:08

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up vote 7 down vote accepted

It's not a problem to delete symbolic links. I'm not sure why you think that you need to delete the file the link points to.

Just delete them. Try this:

ln -s thing1 thing2   # thing1 does not exist
ln -s thing2 thing1   # circular reference
rm thing1 thing2      # no problem
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up vote 3 down vote

Nevermind, I can delete both links simultaneously with rm. Why did someone say I had to delete the target file...

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unlink is even nicer than rm to remove links safely. – ℝaphink Feb 2 '10 at 16:21
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You could have even just deleted one of the simlinks and left the other - if you had any reason to. – Justin Smith Feb 2 '10 at 21:07
up vote 2 down vote

When you delete a symbolic link in Linux, the link is deleted and not the target file.

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