User Commands						 LNDIR(1)



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

SYNOPSIS
     lndir [ -silent ] [ -ignorelinks ]	[ -withrevinfo ]  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  real	 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 sym-
     links 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 sym-
     links to the real thing: just cd 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  direc-
     tory).

     Note that BitKeeper, CVS, CVS.adm,	.git, .hg, RCS,	SCCS, and
     .svn  directories are shadowed only if the	-withrevinfo flag
     is	specified.  Files with names ending in ~ are  never  sha-
     dowed.

     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.

     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  -ignorelinks  flag
     changes this behavior.

OPTIONS
     -silent
	  Normally lndir outputs the name of each subdirectory as



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User Commands						 LNDIR(1)



	  it  descends	into  it.   The	-silent	option suppresses
	  these	status messages.

     -ignorelinks
	  Causes the program to	not treat symbolic links in from-
	  dir  specially.   The	 link created in todir will point
	  back to the corresponding (symbolic link) file in from-
	  dir.	 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 recom-
	  mended.

     -withrevinfo
	  Causes any source control manager subdirectories (those
	  named	BitKeeper, CVS,	CVS.adm, .git, .hg, RCS, SCCS, or
	  .svn)	to be treated as any other directory, rather than
	  ignored.

DIAGNOSTICS
     The program  displays  the	 name  of  each	 subdirectory  it
     enters,  followed by a colon.  The	-silent	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
     ln(1).




















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