This web page implies that it is possible to make symbolic links with relative paths using mklink.
I have tried all sorts of ways to make relative symbolic links, but I always end up with an absolute path.
How is it done?
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MSDN has a strange way of explaining this. I had a hard time understanding how to make a symbolic link, since there are no actual examples.– iglvzxNov 27, 2011 at 8:06
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The only reason I know this "strange way" is because MSDOS use this method.– surfasbNov 27, 2011 at 8:50
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I don't understand why my question has 20,000 views now, when the problem was caused by a bug in TCC/LE. Symbolic links are made relative by default usually.– paradroidFeb 27, 2017 at 14:01
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2 Answers
Symbolic links are relative by default. You have to explicitly write a drive letter to make any part of the link absolute.
The general syntax for a symbolic link is:
mklink link destination
So, to create a relative symbolic link: link is going to be a path relative to your working directory, and destination is going to be a path relative to link.
Examples:
1. mklink link.txt ..\destination.txt
This creates a symbolic link for link.txt which points to destination.txt one folder up.
You can move link.txt around, and it will always point to destination.txt one folder up.
2. C:\>mklink A\Link.txt ..\Destination.txt
This creates a symbolic link C:\A\Link.txt for C:\Destination.txt
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1This is it. Rather than beginning with a drive letter or a backslash, you just begin with a directory. eg
mklink destination.txt "documentation\readme.txt"will point to a child folder called documetation" and a file in that folder called *readme.txt.– surfasbNov 27, 2011 at 8:47 -
@surfasb, @iglvzx: At first I was confused, as that is exactly what I have been trying. But as you both confirm that this works, I have realised that it does work in
CMD, but not inTCC/LE, which is what I have been using. I am surprised that it is altering (expanding) path arguments for external programs. Nov 27, 2011 at 9:20 -
@surfasb: This problem with TCC/LE has been fixed with the new v13, but happened with 12.11.76, which I had been using. Nov 28, 2011 at 9:58
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2@paradroid: I'm glad it is working out. I remember fondly the old old version of TCC. How long have you been using it now? On another not, yeah, the nuances of PATH enumeration boggles my mind. And the obligatory [blog post]:(blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/11/22/495740.aspx) about how past MS-DOS decisions towards compatibility still affects us today.– surfasbNov 28, 2011 at 14:25
To make relative link to a directory use /D switch
For example:
mklink /D lib\foo ..\foo
Links directory foo from parent directory as lib\foo.
When the link is moved to another directory, it will still point to ..\foo in a relative sense.
Junctions created using /J switch can have relative path specified at the time of creation, however this path is resolved and junction will always point to an absolute path.
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This is actually incorrect, as the
/Jswitch is for making junctions, which are hardlinks, not symbolic links and has nothing to do with relative paths. Feb 2 at 19:57 -
You are right - my bad. The
/Jswitch makes the link absolute even when at the time of creation relative path was given.– infiFeb 16 at 3:53 -
Junctions aren't hardlinks, they're also a type of symbolic links (with slightly different semantics from "Unix symlinks" that
/dcreates), but it is true that they always use an absolute path. You can usefsutil reparsePoint queryto see what path is stored inside a symlink or a junction. (Real hardlinks would not be reparse points at all.)– user1686Feb 16 at 14:13