Circular symlink checking?

Scott Blachowicz scott at grlab.UUCP
Sat Sep 2 03:41:57 AEST 1989


Does anyone have a script to check for circular symbolic links? I had
some lately that I noticed things like /foo/bar/bar -> /foo/bar. I think
they got created by a script I had to go fix some of the symbolic links
on the system (the script probably got a little over ambitious).

I can generate something with the "symlink -> file" stuff in it, but
need to know a good way to check for symbolic links into the same
directory. It seems I only need to check on things if the "file" is a
directory. The simpler case is checking to see if a particular symlink
loops back into its own directory path. That could probably be checked
by getting the device/inode #s for each directory in the "file"s path
and comparing with the device/inode # of the parent directory of the
"symlink". This would take care of this particular mistake, but a more
general solution should check for multiple jump cycles...
   /a/b/c/d -> /e/f/g -> /h/i/j -> /a/b

Anybody have anything? (is this the right place for this article?)

Scott Blachowicz
USPS:  Graphicus                UUCP:    ...!hpubvwa!grlab!scott
       150 Lake Str S, #206     VoicePh: 206/828-4691
       Kirkland, WA 98033       FAX:     206/828-4236



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