Replace symbolic-link with target

Question

How can you replace all symbolic-links in a directory (and children) with their targets on Mac OS X? If the target is not available, I'd prefer to leave the soft link alone.

Answer 1

If you are using mac OSX aliases, then find . -type l won't come up with anything.

You can use the following [Node.js] script to move/copy the targets of your symlinks to another directory:

fs = require('fs')
path = require('path')

sourcePath = 'the path that contains the symlinks'
targetPath = 'the path that contains the targets'
outPath = 'the path that you want the targets to be moved to'

fs.readdir sourcePath, (err,sourceFiles) ->
    throw err if err

    fs.readdir targetPath, (err,targetFiles) ->
        throw err if err

        for sourceFile in sourceFiles
            if sourceFile in targetFiles
                targetFilePath = path.join(targetPath,sourceFile)
                outFilePath = path.join(outPath,sourceFile)

                console.log """
                    Moving: #{targetFilePath}
                        to: #{outFilePath}
                    """
                fs.renameSync(targetFilePath,outFilePath)

                # if you don't want them oved, you can use fs.cpSync instead

Answer 2

Here are versions of chmeee's answer that uses readlink and will work properly if there are spaces in any filename:

New filename equals old link name:

find . -type l | while read -r link
do 
    target=$(readlink "$link")
    if [ -e "$target" ]
    then
        rm "$link" && cp "$target" "$link" || echo "ERROR: Unable to change $link to $target"
    else
        # remove the ": # " from the following line to enable the error message
        : # echo "ERROR: Broken symlink"
    fi
done

New filename equals target name:

find . -type l | while read -r link
do
    target=$(readlink "$link")
    # using readlink here along with the extra test in the if prevents
    # attempts to copy files on top of themselves
    new=$(readlink -f "$(dirname "$link")/$(basename "$target")")
    if [ -e "$target" -a "$new" != "$target" ]
    then
        rm "$link" && cp "$target" "$new" || echo "ERROR: Unable to change $link to $new"
    else
        # remove the ": # " from the following line to enable the error message
        : # echo "ERROR: Broken symlink or destination file already exists"
    fi
done

Answer 3

You didn't say what names the files should have after the replacement.

This script considers the replaced links should have the same names they had as links.

for link in `find . -type l`
do 
  target=`\ls -ld $link | sed 's/^.* -> \(.*\)/\1/'`
  test -e "$target" && (rm "$link"; cp "$target" "$link")
done

If you want the files to have the same name as the target, this should do.

for link in `find . -type l`
do
  target=`\ls -ld $link | sed 's/^.* -> \(.*\)/\1/'`
  test -e "$target" && (rm $link; cp "$target" `dirname "$link"`/`basename "$target"`)
done