how to remove symlink to directory where target directory is not empty

[John Kittel]

How can I remove a symbolic link to a directory, when the target directory is not empty?

( rm doesn't work because the link is to a directory. rmdir doesn't work because the directory isn't empty. I want to remove the sybolic directory link, not the target directory or files.)

- John

[Sandman!]

Shouldn't matter...rm should do the job unless there are invisible characters in the symbolic link name.

~cheers

[Pete Randall]

$ mkdir testdir
$ touch testdir/teststuff
$ ln -s testdir test_dir
$ rm test_dir
$ ll testdir
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 plr support 0 Dec 6 13:22 teststuff


Pete

[Heironimus · Accepted solution]

When you remove the link make sure it doesn't have a trailing slash in the rm command line. If it has a trailing slash it will look at the target directory, without a trailing slash it refers to just the symlink.

[John Kittel]

Ah! Thanks Heironimus! The trailing slash was goofing me up. I normally wouldn't type the trailing slash myself, but I was using the shell's filename completion, and it was putting it in there for me.

- JOhn