Windows - How to Make a Symbolic Link with a Relative Path Using Mklink?

mklinksymbolic-linkwindows

This web page implies that it is possible to make symbolic links with relative paths using mklink.

I have tried all sorts of ways to make relative symbolic links, but I always end up with an absolute path.

How is it done?

Best Answer

Symbolic links are relative by default. You have to explicitly write a drive letter to make any part of the link absolute.

The general syntax for a symbolic link is:

mklink link destination

So, to create a relative symbolic link: link is going to be a path relative to your working directory, and destination is going to be a path relative to link.

Examples:

1. mklink link.txt ..\destination.txt

This creates a symbolic link for link.txt which points to destination.txt one folder up.

You can move link.txt around, and it will always point to destination.txt one folder up.

2. C:\>mklink A\Link.txt ..\Destination.txt

This creates a symbolic link C:\A\Link.txt for C:\Destination.txt

Related Solutions

Windows – How to make a symbolic link on Windows 7

There's a typo in your command; It's mklink, not mlink. I still recommend using Junction, mainly because it also allows for deleting junction points, unlike mklink.

Linux – How to copy relative symbolic links and keep targets

As those symlinks are created w/o full qualified path, that's a thing hard to do with cp. But you could rather create new ones at the target:

for i in *; do [ -L $i ] && cd blah && ln -s ../$i $i && cd -; done

Short explanation:

for i in *: Loop over the list of files/directories in the currend location
do: encapsulate what has to be done
[ -L $i ] &&: only continue if the current entry is a symbolic link
cd blah && ln -s ../$i $i && cd -: change to blah and create symlinks to the original location

That's not yet exactly what you want (as it symlinks the symlinks). So we will modify it a bit:

for i in *; do [ -L $i ] && cd blah && ln -s ../$(readlink ../$i) $i && cd -; done

The added construct $(readlink ../$i) evaluates the object the link points to, and places the result there instead. Et voila -- the result is what you were looking for.

Note that I simplified your request a little (making it as if you'd just want to copy the symlinks to a subdirectory), so it is easier to follow. You have to adjust it either, as I do not assume your real directory is called blah :)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – How to make a symbolic link on Windows 7

Linux – How to copy relative symbolic links and keep targets

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