How to check if the directory is symlink in chef

Question

I just want to do delete directory if it is not symlnik.

directory "/var/www/html/" do
  action :delete
  only_if ???
end

Gumbotil

Answer 1

The selected answer will not work on Windows or systems where Bash is the default interpreter. You should use a Ruby solution to be cross-platform (and faster, since there's no process spawning):

directory '/var/www/html' do
  action :delete
  not_if { File.symlink?('/var/www/html') }
end

Tetrabrach

Thank you! It sounds good. I changed the recipe and it works nice! Cookbook needs to be cross-platform. I changed the answer selection to yours. – Gumbotil

Answer 2

How about:

directory "/var/www/html/" do
    action :delete
    not_if "test -L /var/www/html/"
end

test -L $file returns 0 (true) if $file is a symlink.

Carl

Thanks! I solved the problem with your solution. But I eliminate last slash of paths. – Gumbotil

I would go for a ruby-based solution in the not_if block. See here. – Hiatus

Thank you. ruby-based solution is better. – Gumbotil