Check for symbolic link

Question

I have a symbolic link a.c in my home directory to another file in the same directory.

a.c -> b.c

I know how to check a.c is a symbolic link using the shell script

if [ -L /home/nit/a.c ] ; then
    echo "a.c is a symbolic link"
fi

But my question is how to write a shell script to check whether a.c is a symbolic link specifically to b.c ?

Thanks

Static

Answer 1

Use readlink;

[~]> ln -s foo bar
[~]> readlink bar 
foo

Multinational

So, if [[ -L a.c ]] && [[ "$(readlink a.c)" = "b.c" ]]; then echo "a.c is a link to b.c"; fi – Milled

Answer 2

You could also do ls -F filename.txt which returns filename.txt@ if it is a symbolic link.

Skit