unfold

unfold is a command line utility for replacing symbolic links with their targets.

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Installation
• User Guide
• CHANGELOG

Installation

unfold is available via cargo:

cargo install unfold-symlinks

User Guide

For reference, below is the output of unfold -h. For a more detailed output, run unfold --help.

Unfold symbolic links to their targets.

Usage: unfold [OPTIONS] <SYMLINK>...

Arguments:
  <SYMLINK>...  Symbolic links to unfold

Options:
  -f, --follow-to-source  Follow symbolic links to their source
  -n, --num-layers <NUM>  Follow up to NUM symbolic links
  -v, --verbose           Set for verbose output
  -h, --help              Print help (see more with '--help')
  -V, --version           Print version

Basic Usage

• Use unfold to replace a symbolic link to a file with a copy of said file:

# setup
echo "Hello World!" > greeting.txt
ln -s greeting.txt second_greeting.txt

# unfold second_greeting.txt to replace w/ copy of greeting.txt
unfold second_greeting.txt

# change contents of the original file
echo "Hello There!" > greeting.txt

# verify second_greeting.txt hasn't changed
cat second_greeting.txt  # output: 'Hello World!'

• unfold also works on symbolic links to directories. The contents of the new directory will be symbolic links to the contents of the target directory:

# setup
mkdir secret_stuff
echo "Krabby Patty Formula" > secret_stuff/secret_recipe.txt
ln -s secret_stuff important_stuff

# unfold the important stuff
unfold important_stuff

# after unfolding, important_stuff will be a directory, 
# containing symbolic links to the contents of the secret_stuff directory.
readlink important_stuff/secret_recipe.txt  # output: 'documents/secret_recipe.txt'

• If the target of the symbolic link is itself a symbolic link, then unfold will replace it with a copy of that symbolic link (i.e. a new symbolic link with identical target to that symbolic link):

# setup
echo "Trans rights are human rights!" > facts.txt
ln -s facts.txt laws_of_physics.txt
ln -s laws_of_physics.txt bridget_says.txt

# unfold
unfold bridget_says.txt

# verify symlink has changed to now target facts.txt
readlink bridget_says.txt  # output: 'facts.txt'

• You can unfold multiple symbolic links in the same command:

# setup
touch water earth fire air
ln -s water korra
ln -s earth kyoshi
ln -s fire roku
ln -s air aang

# unfold multiple symbolic links
unfold korra kyoshi roku aang

Advanced Usage

• Use the -f option to unfold a symbolic link to the source file/directory (following all intermediate symbolic links).

# setup
echo "Source of wisdom" > grandparent
ln -s grandparent parent
ln -s parent you
ln -s you child
ln -s child grandchild

# unfold, following symbolic links to their source.
unfold -f grandchild

# change contents of grandchild and verify the other files haven't changed.
echo "Source of hope" > grandchild
cat child  # output: 'Source of wisdom'
cat grandparent  # output: 'Source of wisdom'

• Use the -n <NUM> option to unfold up to <NUM> symbolic links in a chain of symbolic links (if chain length is less than <NUM>, then this behaves identically to the option -f):

# setup
touch kanto
ln -s kanto johto
ln -s johto hoenn
ln -s hoenn sinnoh
ln -s sinnoh unova

# unfold up to 3 symbolic links in the chain
unfold -n 3 unova

readlink unova  # output: 'kanto'

CHANGELOG

Please see CHANGELOG.md.