LNDIR(1)                   OpenBSD Reference Manual                   LNDIR(1)

NAME
     lndir - create a shadow directory of symbolic links to another directory
     tree

SYNOPSIS
     lndir [-is] [-e exceptfile] fromdir [todir]

DESCRIPTION
     The lndir program makes a shadow copy todir of a directory tree fromdir,
     except that the shadow is not populated with real files but instead with
     symbolic links pointing at the real files in the fromdir directory tree.
     This is usually useful for maintaining source code for different machine
     architectures.  You create a shadow directory containing links to the re-
     al source, which you will have usually mounted from a remote machine.
     You can build in the shadow tree, and the object files will be in the
     shadow directory, while the source files in the shadow directory are just
     symlinks to the real files.

     This scheme has the advantage that if you update the source, you need not
     propagate the change to the other architectures by hand, since all source
     in all shadow directories are symlinks to the real thing: just change
     working directory to the shadow directory and recompile away.

     The todir argument is optional and defaults to the current directory.
     The fromdir argument may be relative (e.g. ../src) and is relative to
     todir (not the current directory).

     If you add files, simply run lndir again.  New files will be silently
     added.  Old files will be checked that they have the correct link.

     Deleting files is a more painful problem; the symlinks will just point
     into never never land.

     The options are as follows:

     -e exceptfile
             Add the specified file to the list of excluded files/directories.
             This is effective in all directories searched by lndir.  This op-
             tion may be specified as many times as needed.

             The following types of files are excluded by default:

                   -   files whose names end in `~'
                   -   files whose names start with `.#'
                   -   RCS, SCCS, CVS, and CVS.adm directories

     -i      If a file in fromdir is a symbolic link, lndir will make the same
             link in todir rather than making a link back to the (symbolic
             link) entry in fromdir.  The -i flag changes that behavior, i.e.
             it causes the program to not treat symbolic links in fromdir spe-
             cially.  The link created in todir will point back to the corre-
             sponding (symbolic link) file in fromdir.  If the link is to a
             directory, this is almost certainly the wrong thing.

             This option exists mostly to emulate the behavior the C version
             of lndir had in X11R6.  Its use is not recommended.

     -s      Suppresses status messages normally output as lndir descends into
             each subdirectory.

DIAGNOSTICS
     The program displays the name of each subdirectory it enters, followed by
     a colon.  The -s option suppresses these messages.

     A warning message is displayed if the symbolic link cannot be created.
     The usual problem is that a regular file of the same name already exists.

     If the link already exists but doesn't point to the correct file, the
     program prints the link name and the location where it does point.

SEE ALSO
     find(1), ln(1), patch(1)

HISTORY
     lndir was first distributed as part of X11.

     This version first appeared in OpenBSD 1.2.

BUGS
     The patch(1) program gets upset if it cannot change the files.  You
     should never run patch(1) from a shadow directory anyway.

     To clear out all files before you can relink (if fromdir moved, for in-
     stance):

           $ find todir -type l -print0 | xargs -0 -r rm

     Find all files that are not directories:

           $ find . ! -type d -print0

OpenBSD 4.7                    January 11, 2008                              2
