makelink

mklink isn't usable from non-cmd.exe shells on Windows because it's a Batch built-in.

The version of ln that comes with Git Bash on Windows copies files instead of creating actual symlinks.

Enter makelink. It makes symlinks. It runs on Windows, MacOS, Linux, and maybe elsewhere.

Installation

You need a recent build of Rust.

cargo install makelink

Usage

It's the same as the cp command.

makelink <source> <dest>

Example:

echo "hi" > foo.txt
makelink foo.txt bar.txt
cat bar.txt # hi

If you forget the order of the arguments (you will), makelink --help is small and to-the-point:

USAGE:
    makelink.exe <source> <dest>

FLAGS:
    -h, --help       Prints help information
    -V, --version    Prints version information

ARGS:
    <source>    This is where the link will point to
    <dest>      This is where the link will be created

License

makelink is available under the MIT license. See LICENSE.txt for details.