Replace all symlinks by the original file

Posted on 2018-03-02 09:39:24
by Geert Vandeweyer

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Replace all symlinks by the original file

Posted on 2018-03-02 09:39:24
by Geert Vandeweyer

This is a quick command to replace a folder with symlinks by the target files. The original files are not removed. 

sed -i '' *

If you need to do this recursively, use : 

shopt -s globstar
sed -i '' **/*

I found this on StackOverflow , so credits go to Julien Palard. The princple is that "sed -i" uses a tmp file, and puts it in place of the source after it's finished. Hence, the symlink is replaced by the updated file. Since no replacement command is given ( the empty quotes), the file is not changed. 

BASH, Batch, cotd