Finding Symbolic Links in Unix

Hi All,
Is there a way to find whether a File is a Symbolic Link or not in Unix Environment using Java API ??
Thanks
Sateesh

Since you knew that one, it
would interest me to know if you know how to detect
if a file is hard linked, and to what. I don't think it is possible to tell if a file is hard linked using pure Java because ALL files are effectively hard linked. Within unix, a file is separate from it's name and it's name is linked to the file. A hard link is just another name linked to a file.
I seem to remember that each file has a reference count that indicates how many names the file has linked to it. Using 'ls -al' you get a column that indicates the number of hard links so the reference count must be available through C and therefore through JNI.
I don't think there are links from a file to any of it's names.
You will be able to get a more authoritative answer though the use of Google.

Similar Messages

Relative symbolic links damaged by Finder

I have little experience of these matters and would be grateful if somebody could explain the apparent differences between command line and Finder use of relative symbolic links. The example below examines relative symbolic link z before, during and after it has been moved twice by the Finder.
G4:~ neville$ cd /x/y
G4:y neville$ ln -s ../ z
G4:y neville$ ls -l
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 neville staff 3 4 Jul 21:46 z -> ../
Move z to x with Finder.
G4:y neville$ cd ../
G4:x neville$ ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 neville staff 102 4 Jul 21:48 y
lrwxr-xr-x 1 neville staff 3 4 Jul 21:46 z -> ../
The above listing is as I would expect and Finder's Get Info confirms that z points to root.
Move z to y with Finder.
G4:x neville$ cd y
G4:y neville$ ls -l
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 neville staff 3 4 Jul 21:46 z -> ../
The above listing is as I would expect but Finder's Get Info still shows z pointing to root.
Is it possible that the first Finder move converts the Finder's view of z to an absolute path so that subsequent Finder moves no longer maintain the correct relative relationship? Clearly the Terminal continues to report what one would expect although, unfortunately, double clicking z appears to confirm the Finder's incorrect interpretation.
How can I ensure that the Finder does not alter relative symbolic links and hence maintain consistency between Terminal and Finder?

Neville Hillyer wrote:
I was not aware that the Finder had a cache - where is it?
In the Finder process.
killall Finder is a little drastic - is there a way to clear the cache or force an update without relaunching the Finder?
No. The cache is there to prevent repeated disk accesses. It wouldn't help to store such a cache on disk.
I wonder if this cache foible is likely to ever result in serious loss of data due to imperfect backups etc - can anybody think of any such issues?
No. This is only in the Finder processes. If your backups relied on the Finder, opened relative symbolic links, then moved them around, then opened them again, it might have problems. That would be a really wacky backup program.
Symbolic links are UNIX things and, as such, are rarely manipulated by the Finder. The expectation is that anyone using symbolic links will do so from a shell.
My understanding is that relative links are often used by applications during normal operation and installation.
Not often. When they are used, they are rarely opened with the Finder and then moved.
I came across this while customising Thunderbird for easy deployment with different users/Macs. Relative links made the task much easier.
The links themselves have not been changed. They will work fine in Thunderbird.
There is an almost total lack of information in man pages about relative links
There is plenty of information. It is mostly in developer documentation related to file systems.
It would be much more helpful if Finder Get Info were to display relative paths in the same way as the Terminal ie: z -> ../
That would only make the problem worse. Get Info clearly shows the Original being in the wrong location. The Finder was designed for Aliases, not symbolic links. Symbolic links work in the Finder a whole lot better than Aliases work in the Terminal.

Change symbolic link to something else

Hi everybody.
this is what i have: Using the "lndir" command in terminal I have a folder full of symbolic links to an external hard drive that is now unconnected. I want to be able to have spotlight index/search this folder so that if there is something on that hard drive i will know about it (its actually going to be nine drives and tons of files). But of course, spotlight will not index or find symbolic links, so what I want to do is run a script or unix command that changes these pointers into some other kind of file that spotlight will see. Same name, same place, but different type.
Since i already have the physical folder layout of the disconnected drive, it doesnt matter to me if the links are destroyed, i just want to be able to search for a file name and know what drive/folder its in so I can avoid plugging in ten drives in a daisy chain.
I was wondering if there is a script or unix command i can run that will make a copy of any file that has an "L" type designation or just copy the file name onto a misc other kind of file.
Alternately, is there a way to change these symbolic links into regular "aliases" that spotlight can search? again it doesnt even matter to me if the aliases point to a dummy location.
I'm not very good at command line syntax, so if you have any suggestions, please explain in dummy cabbage-head terms that I can replicate. if what i want to do is impossible or doable through some available widget or script, those answers would be super as well. Or if there is a better solution than the "lndir" command that can maybe make the same kind of directory copy but with aliases instead or symbolic links?
any options or ideas welcome. thansk!

no, you misunderstand. I do NOT want the files contents to be there (i'm not crazy), i just want the files NAMES to be there and searchable (an offline catalog). They are ALREADY on my home drive in the perfect structure but since they are a file type spotlight wont catalog (being just a symbolic link pointer file) i would like to change the file type to something it can see and thus find. I mean if there was a program or script or shell or something that would look at a file named SHADOWFILE.JPG and made say an empty textfile called SHADOWFILE.JPG.TXT, made the TXT suffix invisible and deleted the original SHADOWFILE.JPG, i would be left with a searchable file name. Or if these pointers can be turned into Aliases (even if they dont point to anything) then spotlight will find them. I know that you can turn an alias into a symbolic link, so is it unreasonable to do the reverse?
If none of this is possible, I realize I can use standalone external catalogers, but that is just not as elegant as having a single search for both internal and external devices at the same time, basically it would require doing two searches instead of one. I think this is a worthy goal.

Support symbolic links (symlinks or Unix's 'ln -s') in the iTunes Media folder hierarchy

As of iTunes version 12.0.1.26, iTunes has partial support for symbolic links in the iTunes Media folder hierarchy. I'd like Apple to enhance iTunes to treat any symlink or folder alias within the hierarchy the same as folders. With the Unix core under OS X, there is no clear reason to not support this feature.
Why is this important? As more of us try to use iTunes as the single repository of all media, the library size becomes larger than is possible to hold on a single partition. The simplest and most convenient solution is to allow users to move large folders (e.g. Music, or Movies) to a different drive or partition, then put an alias or symlink in the original location within the iTunes hierarchy. Users with large collections or small partitions may need to split multiple times. Other users may want to put the bulk of their media on their home/work NAS and only keep a portion on their laptop for mobile access (think long overseas flights), but not have to constantly fiddle with iTunes.
The point is not whether any one of these scenarios may be supported today though a crude hack or third-party tool. Support for symlinks would be relatively easy for Apple to implement and extremely flexible for advanced users.
This is partially supported today. For example, if you do what I described above, iTunes will play all of your existing media. The part that is definitely broken is when you try to use the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder, iTunes will not copy the file to a location under a symlink or alias. The new file will sit in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder and iTunes will generate multiple instances/tracks inside iTunes (e.g. movies appear in the "Unwatched" tab). While there are ways to work around this limitation, they are tedious and ultimately unnecessary if full symlink/alias support is provided.
Best,
Pete

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Can I use Unix symbolic links between Mountain Lion and Snow Leopard Mail folders?

After upgrading to Mountain Lion, I partitioned my iMac HD to have two partitions: Macintosh HD has Mountain Lion; I reinstalled Snow Leopard on Macintosh HD 2. Best part: you can access your user-created files from EITHER disk partition. But not so OS X Mail. I wanted to revert to Snow Leopard, since I don't like the iOS-like Mountain Lion (swipe THIS!), but Mail is a problem since all my Snow Leopard Mail was successfully migrated over to Mountain Lion during upgrade.
Is there a way to use Unix symbolic links between actual OS X Mail folders in Mountain Lion and OS X Mail in Snow Leopard?
It seems the (trial) symbolic link created pointed to a blank file.

It's not a matter of "letting" each maintain its own database, William. By default, I believe, I have no control over what gets written. In fact, if there were a way to set a preference that says, use this index named "spotlightindexSL' only [while in SL], that might solve my problem. Then when booting up in ML, it would just go after the index it last made.
My guess is that while I am in ML or SL and not the other, there are all sorts of changes to files and the system freaks and says "Oh, now look at what a mess I've made — there are all sorts of files unaccounted for. Now I have to rebuild the whole thing."
I have 2 had drives in my Mac, both 500GB. One (Working Disk) has no operating system and all my files, and the other drive is partitioned 470/30gb with SL on the 470 and ML in the 30. When I restart in either OS, the auto-start Indexing as if for the very first time, and do both hard drives (in total: 3 partitions of files, not counting the ML Restore partition).
I know it all uncoventionally — just wanted to see what my $20 new OS will cost me in software upgrades, in particular my $1800 Adobe Design Suite CS4 and a few others.

Clustering, unix symbolic links, and war files

          Hello,
          we use symbolic links in our web application to a large shared storage device.
          This works when running a single server, when the application is not a war file.
          When we cluster the application, the admin server creates a war file, blindly
          follows the symbolic links and tries to include all files in the shared storage
          device. Bad!
          Is there a work-around to this problem in a clustered configuration?
          -Thanks-


          hi,
          can you tell me know you deploy your app to the cluster member
          manually? do you run each member as an admin server? how do
          you group them into a cluster then?
          thanks,
          yan
          "Philippe Lantin" plantin_AT_cobaltgroup.com wrote:
          >
          >
          >Yes, this method works. I did want to keep a central admin server to
          >avoid have
          >multiple configuration files, and deploy new code to only one location.
          >I suppose
          >I could do this via a shared drive.
          >
          >I have an open case with BEA on this issue. The root of the problem appears
          >to
          >be that the jar format isn't equipped to deal with symbolic links. Webapps
          >which
          >are exploded in directories lose their symbolic links when packaged in
          >a war.
          >
          >Thanks,
          >
          >Philippe Lantin
          >
          >"Cameron Purdy" <[email protected]> wrote:
          >>I've never used that centralized deployment feature; rather I've always
          >>configured each of the cluster members manually, partly because of the
          >>bug
          >>in the admin server in 6.0 (?) that would not allow it to deploy to
          >the
          >>cluster.
          >>
          >>Can you try to deploy the application manually?
          >>
          >>Peace,
          >>
          >>--
          >>Cameron Purdy
          >>Tangosol Inc.
          >><< Tangosol Server: How Weblogic applications are customized >>
          >><< Download now from http://www.tangosol.com/download.jsp >>
          >>
          >>
          >><Philippe Lantin plantin_AT_cobaltgroup.com> wrote in message
          >>news:[email protected]...
          >>>
          >>>
          >>> Hi,
          >>>
          >>> our web application is not a war when we use a single server. We simply
          >>use a
          >>> directory under "applications". This method works correctly with symbolic
          >>links
          >>> under weblogic v.6.1.
          >>>
          >>> To test our application in the cluster, we use the previous single
          >>server
          >>as the
          >>> administration server, leaving the application directory intact. We
          >>create
          >>a cluster
          >>> definition with it's target members using this web application.
          >>>
          >>> When we start up the cluster members, the administration server creates
          >>a
          >>war
          >>> file that is distributed to to cluster members. This is not somthing
          >>we
          >>control,
          >>> this is automatically done by weblogic.
          >>>
          >>> This is where we run into trouble. When the admin server creates the
          >>war
          >>file
          >>> to distribute to the cluster target, it follows the symbolic links
          >>and
          >>recursively
          >>> includes all files and directories. This creates a huge war file,
          >and
          >>is
          >>obviously
          >>> not the behavior we are looking for.
          >>>
          >>> Creating a war file manually doesn't help, since jar doesn't support
          >>symbolic
          >>> links.
          >>>
          >>> Thanks,
          >>>
          >>> Philippe Lantin
          >>>
          >>>
          >>> "Cameron Purdy" <[email protected]> wrote:
          >>> >I don't understand at which point you are running into a problem.
          >>> >
          >>> >> we use symbolic links in our web application to a large shared
          >storage
          >>> >device.
          >>> >
          >>> >That is not uncommon, for example to use a Sun storage box or EMC
          >>with
          >>> >some
          >>> >fault tolerant characteristics to host the application images etc.
          >>> >
          >>> >> This works when running a single server, when the application is
          >>not
          >>> >a war
          >>> >file.
          >>> >
          >>> >Do you mean when it is "exploded"? Does it work with a single server
          >>> >when
          >>> >the app is a war file?
          >>> >
          >>> >> When we cluster the application, the admin server creates a war
          >>file,
          >>> >blindly
          >>> >> follows the symbolic links and tries to include all files in the
          >>shared
          >>> >storage
          >>> >> device.
          >>> >
          >>> >This is the part that I don't follow. Are you using 6.1sp1? What
          >are
          >>> >the
          >>> >steps that you are taking with the admin server?
          >>> >
          >>> >Peace,
          >>> >
          >>> >--
          >>> >Cameron Purdy
          >>> >Tangosol Inc.
          >>> ><< Tangosol Server: How Weblogic applications are customized >>
          >>> ><< Download now from http://www.tangosol.com/download.jsp >>
          >>> >
          >>> >
          >>> ><Philippe Lantin plantin_AT_cobaltgroup.com> wrote in message
          >>> >news:[email protected]...
          >>> >>
          >>> >>
          >>> >> Hello,
          >>> >>
          >>> >> we use symbolic links in our web application to a large shared
          >storage
          >>> >device.
          >>> >> This works when running a single server, when the application is
          >>not
          >>> >a war
          >>> >file.
          >>> >> When we cluster the application, the admin server creates a war
          >>file,
          >>> >blindly
          >>> >> follows the symbolic links and tries to include all files in the
          >>shared
          >>> >storage
          >>> >> device. Bad!
          >>> >>
          >>> >> Is there a work-around to this problem in a clustered configuration?
          >>> >>
          >>> >> -Thanks-
          >>> >>
          >>> >>
          >>> >>
          >>> >
          >>> >
          >>>
          >>
          >>
          >

Can I Create A Symbolic Link to folders stored on an SMB Share folder?

Hello,
I am very new to Unix and was hoping that someone could point me in the right direction with regards to Symbolic links and an SMB share folder ....
Have purchased an ext. LAN Drive enclosure (http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hdd3/pleiades/pd_usblan) which connects to my wireless router via ethernet like my G5 (main Mac) - our iBook connects via Airport. I have copied all my general documents/files to the SMB share folder on the ext. drive so that I can access them from the G5 and also the iBook.
However I'd also like to be able to store my actual Mail folder (/Users/Mark/Library/Mail/), , Safari folder (/Users/Mark/Library/Safari) + my Address Book and other folders sitting in the Application Support folder on my SMB share so all important docs/folders are in the one place. I've tried storing these folders on the SMB share and putting an Alias to these back in Users/Mark/Library/Mail etc but of course an Alias doesn't work.
Question 1: Can I create a symbolic link to these files if these are stored on an SMB share folder? If so, could you please tell me exactly what I'd need to type into Terminal? My SMB Share path is smb://STORAGE-XXXX/MARK
I have copied my iPhoto library and iTunes library to the SMB share and are working fine.
Question 2: Is it possible/worth attempting to move my whole home folder to the SMB share folder? Ideally, I'd like to be able to access my Mail from the iBook as well. If I could log into either the G5 or the iBook and access my latest Mail, Address Book and other Application Settings, that would be perfect. Would this be possible?
Thanks
Mark.
Dual 1.8GHz G5 (Rev.B), 2Gig RAM, 9600XT Mac OS X (10.4)

Dear Mark,
Yes you can. The command to create a link will look something like this:
$ ln -s thisFolder /Users/mark/thatFolder
I did this while I was hosting a microsoft based game. This put all of the players into a common directory.
SMB just resolved the link and everything worked fine.
However, as I understand it, some other applications do NOT work very well with links. As I have NOT tried it with other applications, I fear I can be of NO help to you in this matter.
The only way to find out which applications work with links is to try them and see what happens.
Best of luck,
Kurt

Has anyone used Symbolic Links?

I have some files on other volumes of my network that I want
to link to. I want the files to "appear" to be in the root folder
of Dreamweaver. I think a SymLink or symbolic link, or maybe a hard
link is what I need. Has anyone here done such a thing?

"synterx" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:fqf16p$kj2$[email protected]..
> Not Unix unfortunately. I believe its 2003 or something.
I know it's an
> all
> Windows network.
>
> I don't need to do anything fancy. I need to link to
files on the network,
> but
> can't have them copied into the root folder for the
site. A symbolic link
> or
> alias if you will, is the perfect solution. I have to
find a way to do
> this.
> Contribute physically copies the files you link to
outside the root, and
> this
> can't work in my situation. DW at least asks if you want
to copy it,
> Contribute
> just does it with zero option to stop it. It's a shame
really that we
> can't get
> a simple popup asking in Contribute.
in IIS you would need to make a virtual folder that points to
the folder in
question somewhere on the network. However, dealing with
varying network
permissions can be a major PITA.

Can I move the common library or use a symbolic link so that Dropbox can sync it?

A team of us are now using Fireworks for interaction design, and need to synchronise the common library so that the elements we use are up to date.
1. Is the common library the correct method?
2. we use dropbox, and I don't think I can tell dropbox to synchronise just the common library folder (as an isolated path from the rest of the dropbox tree...) - so, is there a trick using a symbolic link we could use so that dropbox thinks the common library is actually in it's own tree? (OSX is BSD afterall...)
We're on Mac OSX 10.7.X, running FW CS6 and using the latest dropbox for Mac.
I look forward to hearing some ideas. The question of teams using fireworks has been raised several times since 2009, and Adobe still hasn't got a solution. The mind boggles as to whether or not Adobe takes Fireworks seriously - I hope they do...
All the best,
Dylan

Thanks groove25.
I did find that it is possible to use symbolic links and Dropbox to synchronise the common library across computers. It does come with its idiosynchrasies though (excuse thepun).
I'm going to have a go with what this thread recommends:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20120803093247391
and leichter's explanation and walkthrough (nested in the thread) looks very helpful:
There's a subtle point that, once you understand it, makes symlinks much more useful in Dropbox.
The whole design of symlinks in Unix tries to make them invisible to programs that don't specifically try to manipulate them. So suppose 'sym' is a symlink to 'file'. If a program opens 'sym' for read, it actually gets the data in 'file'. If it appends to 'sym', it actually appends to 'file'. However, if it deletes 'sym', what disappears is the link 'sym', not the file 'file'. Opening 'sym' for writing as a new file - not appending to it - is equivalent to deleting the old file and creating a new one: It leaves 'file' unchanged and creates an entirely new file named 'sym' which no longer has any connection with 'file'.
A link to a directory follows the same rules. Looking a file up using the symlink as the name really searches the linked-to directory. Creating a file through the symlink is like appending: It creates the entry in the linked directory. And so on.
A program that wishes to do something special - like change where a symlink points - has to be aware that it's dealing with a symlink and use special OS calls for that exact purpose.
Dropbox works with symlinks *but it doesn't do anything special with them*. So suppose you put that 'sym' linked to 'file' in your Dropbox directory. Dropbox comes along, finds a new file, and sends it to its servers. What does it send? Well, first the name 'sym', and then the "contents" - i.e., what it gets from reading 'sym' which is exactly the contents of 'file'. On the server, and then later on other clients, what you will find is a normal file named 'sym' with the contents of 'file'. *There is no connection with a file named 'file'.* If you change 'file' on the system where 'sym' links to it, the changes propagate. If you change it anywhere else, the changes propagate back - but Dropbox doesn't modify files in place, it writes entire new ones. So the effect back on the original system is to break the link and write a new file named 'sym' with the latest contents - but no connection to 'file'.
I know of no way to keep a link to a *file* as a symlink across updates. But the story is different for *directories*. Unlike ordinary files, directories are normally updated in place (unless you explicit delete and recreate them). So you can do the following:
1. Create directory 'dir' anywhere you like.
2. Create symlink 'dirlink' pointing to 'dir' in your Dropbox folder.
3. Wait for 'dirlink' to appear on all other clients. It will appear as an ordinary directory, not as a symlink. If the original 'dir' had files in it, those will now appear as files on the clients, too.
4. On each client, rename 'dirlink' to 'dir' *in the place you want it to appear in your directory tree*. (Renaming only works if you are staying not the same device. Otherwise, you need to create 'dir' and move all the files.) This need not be the same on all clients, though it's easier to keep track of if it is.
5. On each client, create symlink 'dirlink' pointing to 'dir'.
Now you have a 'dirlink' on each client, which will to Dropbox look like a subdirectory - and it will sync all the files in that "subdirectory". Changes made on any client to any file in 'dir' aka 'dirlink' will be synced to all the other clients as well. Files created or deleted in 'dir' will be created/deleted on every other client as well.
It's probably easiest to do all this while there are no files in 'dir'. Otherwise, Dropbox sometimes repeatedly syncs the same files until everything eventually settles down.
The limitations here:
- Some platforms (e.g., iOS) don't support symlinks. To them, 'dirlink' will just be an ordinary subdirectory.
- Any time you add a new client, you have to go through the process for that client. Certain reset operations in Dropbox - anything that requires re-syncing every file in the Dropbox folder on a client - will require the same, because Dropbox doesn't know how to *create* symlinks - it'll just create an ordinary subdirectories.
I've used this configuration for a couple of years. You have to watch out for the reset situations and such, but generally once you have it set up, it "just works".
-- Jerry
All the best,
Dylan

Replace symbolic links with actual file

Hello everybody,
I have recently decided to move my seven iPhoto collections from an old external drive with insufficient capacity to a new bigger one. We talk some 50.000+ photos. Up to a couple of years ago, I had decided NOT to let iPhoto import the photos into its internal library, but I left the originals in a distinct directory external to the iPhoto package.
Moving the iPhoto packages from the old to the new disk, I ran into a problem with the links to this external directory once I had retired the old external drive … because all links to the external originals broke.
Here an example:
- The old drive is called MOBIL
- The new drive is called Photos
In the directory /Volumes/Photos/iPhoto Library 1999 - 2002/Masters/2000/ESRIN, I find a symbolic link named:
/Volumes/Photos/iPhoto Library 1999 - 2002/Masters/2000/ESRIN/DCP_0211.JPG
In a terminal session this file is: -rw-rw-rw-@ 1 js 0 29 Okt 2006 DCP_0211.JPG
The original is correctly reported as /Volumes/MOBIL/Eigene Bilder - Jurgen/Fotos/2000/09 September/ESRIN/DCP_0211.JPG
Of course, iPhoto does not find the original once I remove the volume MOBIL.
I see two possible solutions to this issue:
1. Replace the broken symbolic link /Volumes/MOBIL/... with the new one /Volumes/Photos
2. Replace the symbolic link with the actual file, i.e., copy each file from MOBIL to Photos (I don't care about the additional disk space used by this)
I'd prefer solution 2 but my UNIX knowledge is not sufficient to automate this task - we are talking hundreds of directories and thousands of files …
Any idea ho to achieve the above ? Any utility around ? Any other idea ?
Many thanks in advance - Jurgen

I believe that /Volumes normally contains a single symbolic link to the boot volume, and that all the other items there are not true symbolic links but are rather "mount points" which are managed dynamically by the system. Try running
ls -l /Volumes
in Terminal and you will see that all the items except for the boot volume show up as directories, and that only the boot volume item is a symbolic link. When you look at /Volumes in Finder (via Go To Folder) , the mount point icons have curved "alias" arrows and are labeled "alias", similar to symbolic links, but they are different entities.
With respect to the iPhoto paths, if you still have the old drive I think I would try cloning it to the new one so that the contents of the new drive are identical, disconnecting the old drive, and then renaming the new drive to match the name of the old drive. Then launch iPhoto and see if it finds everything.

Maintaining Multiple Arch Installs, Symbolic Links, BTRFS

Hi again.
A quick update on my previous post (https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164627). The GRUB problem I was having seems to have stopped. I got a very useful recommendation regarding pacman and XBMC still hasn't been fixed, but is fully usable with the workaround I am using and have just gotten used to it so it's not so much of an issue now. I think now that it should be marked as solved but how do I do that? Was looking around but guess I'm just missing it.
Anyway now I have a few more issues, or more just questions I guess that I would like help on. Recently I found an old laptop of mine and so to learn more about the Arch system I decided to try and install Arch. Now this laptop is around 5-6 years old and I haven't been able to get WiFi working fully for around 3 years and eventually upgraded 2 years ago to my current laptop. The WiFi was always 'soft-locked' until after about 4-5 restarts (in windows it was fine, but any Linux Distribution post Ubuntu 10.10 had the same issue). The issues still remains in other distributions even after "rfkill all". In Arch ever since running that command (the first boot from install media the issue occurred) this laptops WiFi has been brilliant. I also installed XFCE4 desktop for speed of set up. Now I'm looking to give my laptop to my younger brother before he heads of to University in September until he can afford a new one (or he breaks this one - somehow his laptops never last), as this old one now runs better than it ever did on Windows Vista. My girlfriend is also looking for me to install Linux again on her laptop (we used WUBI in the past) but a full install since her Windows Vista laptop is near unusable in Windows. So far I have got hamachi set up between my new and old laptop, this gives static IP addresses and will allow me to SSH into the laptop for upgrades every so often. I'm planning to do the same for my girlfriends laptop. Would I be stupid to do this via Arch? I've heard it breaks often and I don't want to have to be doing fixes for other peoples laptops as I won't have the time to do so. I guess the reason I want to use Arch is both laptops are quite old and Arch has breathed new life into my old one.
Secondly I have symbolic links set up in my "Music" and "Video" folders in my home directory to their counterparts in my Windows partition. However my music player "Clementine" doesn't find every album in the music folder. Does symbolic links have "flaws" like this or is it more likely to be my music player behaving badly with symbolic links? I would try another music player but I can't seem to find one which plays FLAC files with external / embedded .cue files so can't really test this out. I can of course link directly to the location but I thought I would ask, just to learn more I guess.
Now when I installed Arch using BTRFS file system I didn't know that I had to mount using compression immediately, I thought I could add it to the fstab at a later point - obviously not. Now I found a command which will defragment my drive and supposedly compress everything. However this command doesn't make any sense to me and I don't want to just run it without knowing what it does. Could anyone other me any insight into this please? Also does defragmentation after the fstab mount options have been added cause the compression?
"find -xdev -type f -exec btrfs fi defrag '{}' \;"
or I also found
"btrfs filesystem defragment ~/stuff"
Thanks for any help, I understand this post is quite long so I really appreciate it.
Last edited by BradPJ (2013-06-13 10:19:47)

Ah right thanks. I thought as much which is why I asked before I did so, I'll find another distribution. Just where I've been running Arch for a few weeks now and haven't had to do any maintenance at all really, but weren't too sure what I'd be in for in the long-run. I mean to be fair I was always planning on another distribution but as I was playing around at first on the old laptop I ended up with my current way to SSH in and just wondered if it would be viable to do it this way.
I knew it would be a driver issue at the core of my problem, just weren't too sure if it something else could of been affecting it. Guess I'll try and find another distribution which runs near as new software to Arch as possible as it seems the issue has been fixed in newer versions of the kernel and drivers. Granted the old laptop had been unused for around a year so any update in the last year could of fixed it in this case. Thanks for your input!
Last edited by BradPJ (2013-06-13 11:35:16)

Symbolic link error when exporting during heterogeneous system copy

My enviroment is ECC6.0/Oracle 10.2.0.2/SUN Solaris 10 . I'm performing heterogeneous system copy to Oracle 10.2.0.2/AIX 6.1 enviroment.
I've succesfully exported & imported two systems ie DEV & Solutin Manager , but PRD system has an OS problem with symbolic links ie Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS
I want to export both ABAP & JAVA stack but only the java stack is getting picked.
Below is part of the resultng sapinst.log
Thanks
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:30.573
Execute step verifyJavaHome of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0|NW_getJavaHome|ind|ind|ind|ind|2|0
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:44:33.851
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/._), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:44:33.851
FSL-02061 Link /._ is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:46.118
Execution of the command "/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/bin/java -classpath /tmp/sapinst_exe.29247.1315208256/JAR/ins-j2ee.jar com.sap.ins.j2ee.GetSystemProperty" finished with return code 0. Output: #
#Mon Sep 05 10:44:45 EAT 2011
java.runtime.name=Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition
sun.boot.library.path=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/sparc
java.vm.version=1.4.2_09-b05
java.vm.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
java.vendor.url=http\://java.sun.com/
path.separator=\:
java.vm.name=Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
file.encoding.pkg=sun.io
user.country=US
sun.os.patch.level=unknown
java.vm.specification.name=Java Virtual Machine Specification
user.dir=/oracle/PRD/INSTDIR/sapinst_dir
java.runtime.version=1.4.2_09-b05
java.awt.graphicsenv=sun.awt.X11GraphicsEnvironment
java.endorsed.dirs=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/endorsed
os.arch=sparc
java.io.tmpdir=/var/tmp/
line.separator=\n
java.vm.specification.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
os.name=SunOS
sun.java2d.fontpath=
java.library.path=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/sparc/client\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/sparc\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/../lib/sparc\:/tmp/sapinst_exe.29247.1315208256\:/usr/openwin/lib\:/usr/lib
java.specification.name=Java Platform API Specification
java.class.version=48.0
java.util.prefs.PreferencesFactory=java.util.prefs.FileSystemPreferencesFactory
os.version=5.10
user.home=/
user.timezone=Africa/Nairobi
java.awt.printerjob=sun.print.PSPrinterJob
file.encoding=ISO8859-1
java.specification.version=1.4
java.class.path=/tmp/sapinst_exe.29247.1315208256/JAR/ins-j2ee.jar
user.name=root
java.vm.specification.version=1.0
java.home=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre
sun.arch.data.model=32
user.language=en
java.specification.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
java.vm.info=mixed mode
java.version=1.4.2_09
java.ext.dirs=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/ext
sun.boot.class.path=/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/rt.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/i18n.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/sunrsasign.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/jsse.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/jce.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/lib/charsets.jar\:/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/jre/classes
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
file.separator=/
java.vendor.url.bug=http\://java.sun.com/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi
sun.io.unicode.encoding=UnicodeBig
sun.cpu.endian=big
sun.cpu.isalist=sparcv9vis2 sparcv9vis sparcv9 sparcv8plusvis2 sparcv8plusvis sparcv8plus sparcv8 sparcv8-fsmuld sparcv7 sparc
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:47.076
Execution of the command "/usr/j2sdk1.4.2_09/bin/java -classpath /tmp/sapinst_exe.29247.1315208256/JAR/ins-j2ee.jar:/tmp/sapinst_exe.29247.1315208256/JAR/sapxmltoolkit.jar -d64 com.sap.ins.j2ee.TestClassLoader" finished with return code 0. Output: CORRECT
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:47.572
Execute step verifyPolicy of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0|NW_getJavaHome|ind|ind|ind|ind|2|0
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:47.715
Execute step setNWOption of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0|NW_getJavaHome|ind|ind|ind|ind|2|0
WARNING 2011-09-05 10:44:47.944
Could not determine a valid JAVA_HOME directory from the environment.
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:48.86
Execute step assignUsersToSapinstGroup of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:48.890
Account sapinst already exists.
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:48.894
Account prdadm already exists.
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:48.917
Account oraprd already exists.
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:49.73
Execute step useDatabaseMethod of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:49.217
Execute step setDatabaseMethodOra of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:49.341
Execute step setDatabaseMethodDB6 of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0
INFO 2011-09-05 10:44:49.480
Execute step mainExportParameters of component |NW_Export|ind|ind|ind|ind|0|0
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:44:52.251
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/._), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:44:52.252
FSL-02061 Link /._ is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.760
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/cntrl), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.761
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/cntrl is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.762
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/._), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.762
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/._ is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.763
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/sdubhibq), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.764
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/sdubhibq is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.765
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/sduccayx), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.765
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/sduccayx is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.766
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/inventory), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.767
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/inventory is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.768
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/OPatch), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.768
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/OPatch is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.769
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/assistants), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.770
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/assistants is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.771
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/bin), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.772
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/bin is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.773
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/clone), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.773
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/clone is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.774
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/crs), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.775
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/crs is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.776
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/css), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.777
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/css is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.778
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/ctx), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.778
FSL-02061 Link /oracle/PRD/ctx is invalid: Unable to link a link to itself.
INFO[E] 2011-09-05 10:45:01.779
FSL-00001 System call failed. Error 90 (Number of symbolic links encountered during path name traversal exceeds MAXSYMLINKS) in execution of system call 'realpath' with parameter (/oracle/PRD/dbs), line (346) in file (syuxclink.cpp).

Hi,
In PRD system, u might have craeted many symbolic links in /oracle/PRD fileystem . This should be avoided. Symbolic link should not be created in /oracle/PRD ...
Please check why symbolic links are created and get help from System Operation team . Please becareful to unlink symbolic links that are created by non-SAP. Make sure to perform full offline backup .
Please get the help from Unix System Operation team. Also it does not makes any sense to increase value of Unix parameter for maximum symbolic links.
Regards
APR

Newbie question: cannot find symbol symbol: class STRING

I've just decided to teach myself some java, and on my first try something's going wrong and I don't know what it is.
I'm currently doing this tutorial: http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/learn/example1.html
and everything is good until I try to compile it and I get this error in the cmd
HelloWorldSwing.java:30: cannot find symbol
cannot find symbol
symbol: class STRING
everything has been written verbatim from the tutorial, including "import javax.swing.*;"
What's wrong with it and how do I fix it?

Hi,
I saw the coding that You had given a link in your post. Change the following
public static void main(String[] args) {bye for now
sat

Cannot find symbol class error

hi there ,
i am creating a min class that links several classes and i am doing the following
public class Main{
     public static void main(String[] args){
     classOne a = new classOne();
classTwo b = new classTwo();
classThree c = new classThree();
// more classes with the same as above
i am saving all the classes in the same folder , and i am having this error twice with each line that i creat an instance for a class
cannot find symbol
symbol : class classOne

are your classes all in the same package? do you in fact use packages?
Your best bet to get help here is by creating a Short, Self Contained, Correct (Compilable), Example or SSCCE. This is a small application that you create that is compilable and runnable, and demonstrates your error, but contains no extraneous, unnecessary code that is not associated with your problem. To see more about this and how to create this, please look at this link:
http://homepage1.nifty.com/algafield/sscce.html
Remember, this code must be compilable and runnable.
Also, if you do post your code, please use code tags so that your code will be well-formatted and readable. To do this, either highlight your code block and press the "code" button at the top above the message block or place the tag [code] at the top of your block of code and the tag [/code] at the bottom, like so:
[code]
   // your code block goes here
[/code]

Inheritance - Cannot find Symbol

Hello!
After many hours of searching for the answer, i have decided to brave getting a grilling for asking something trivial.
I'm creatating a system and so far the problem i am having is inheritance.
The superclass compiles fine, no problems:
package Boats;
public abstract class Boat
     protected String name;
     protected int price;
     protected int id;
     protected String type;
     protected boolean hire;
     public boat(int boatID, String boatName, int cost, String boatType)
        name = boatName;
          price = cost;
          id = boatID;
          type = boatType;
        hire = false;
}however, the subclass of pedal boat won't compile:
package Boats;
public abstract class PedalBoat extends Boat
     private String colour;
    public PedalBoat(int id, String boatName, int cost, String boatType, String c)
        super(id, boatName, cost, boatType);
          colour = c;
        super.hire = false;
}both of these class files are in the same folder 'Boats', but when i compile PedalBoat, the following message is displayed:
"PedalBoat.java:2: cannot find symbol
symbol: class Boat
public abstract class PedalBoat extends Boat
^
Any thoughts or help or links to anywhere that has answered this before?
Thanks!

You'll want the following directory structure. The C:\projects part is arbitrary. It's what comes after it that matters.
C:\projects\Boats\Boat.java
C:\projects\Boats\PedalBoat.javaThen, CD to C:\projects, and execute
javac -cp . Boats/*.javaAs a side note, to go with the flow convention-wise, I'd suggest renaming your Boats package to boats. Package names are conventionally all lowercase.
[Javapedia: Classpath|http://wiki.java.net/bin/view/Javapedia/ClassPath]
[How Classes are Found|http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/findingclasses.html]
[Setting the class path (Windows)|http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/windows/classpath.html]
[Setting the class path (Solaris/Linux)|http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/solaris/classpath.html]
[Understanding the Java ClassLoader|http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/j-dw-javaclass-i.html]
java -cp .;<any other directories or jars> YourClassNameYou get a NoClassDefFoundError message because the JVM (Java Virtual Machine) can't find your class. The way to remedy this is to ensure that your class is included in the classpath. The example assumes that you are in the same directory as the class you're trying to run.
javac -classpath .;<any additional jar files or directories> YourClassName.javaYou get a "cannot resolve symbol" message because the compiler can't find your class. The way to remedy this is to ensure that your class is included in the classpath. The example assumes that you are in the same directory as the class you're trying to run.

Finding Symbolic Links in Unix

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