Removing linked soft link in Unix

Question

currently i am wanted to clean up my proj area but the problem with rm i am facing is some copy remain in disk
with linked i am meaning soft link

A linked to B 
 B linked to C

C which is on other directory A & B are on same folder

know when i run

rm -rf A 

it removes only A & B but the C remain on the disk how i can remove C from the disk.. using the the same command..

Answer 1

You can use realpath like this:

rm $(realpath A)

Setting up an example:

$ cd $(mktemp -d)
$ pwd
/tmp/tmp.QwSuHKmWwE
$ touch C
$ ln -s C B
$ ln -s B A
$ stat -c "%N" *
`A' -> `B'
`B' -> `C'
`C'

Showing that realpath does what you want:

$ realpath A
/tmp/tmp.QwSuHKmWwE/C

So running rm $(realpath A) is like running rm C.

$ rm $(realpath A)
$ stat -c "%N" *
`A' -> `B'
`B' -> `C'

Or did you want to remove all three files?

In that case, I think you'll have to write a script.

Here's something that should do the job:

#!/bin/bash

if test $# -eq 0; then
    echo "Usage: dellinks.sh <file>..." 1>&2
    exit 2
fi

if ! type readlink >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    echo "dellinks.sh: cannot find readlink program" 1>&2
    exit 1
fi

for file in "$@"; do
    while test -L "$file"; do
        target="$(readlink "$file")"
        rm "$file"
        file="$target"
    done
    if test -e "$file"; then
        rm "$file"
    fi
done

Example:

$ stat -c "%N" *
`A' -> `B'
`B' -> `C'
`C'
$ ~/bin/dellinks.sh
Usage: dellinks.sh <file>...
$ ~/bin/dellinks.sh A
$ stat -c "%N" *
stat: cannot stat `*': No such file or directory

Answer 2

You can try

rm -fr `readlink B`

but this will work with B since it will remove it's target C, but not with A cuz then it will only remove B (A's target).

but that can be done easily via a script that will recursively follow links till they get a non link, then pass it to rm -fr