How to resolve symbolic links in a shell script

Question

Given an absolute or relative path (in a Unix-like system), I would like to determine the full path of the target after resolving any intermediate symlinks. Bonus points for

Answer 1

Here I present what I believe to be a cross-platform (Linux and macOS at least) solution to the answer that is working well for me currently.

crosspath()
{
    local ref="$1"
    if [ -x "$(which realpath)" ]; then
        path="$(realpath "$ref")"
    else
        path="$(readlink -f "$ref" 2> /dev/null)"
        if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
            if [ -x "$(which readlink)" ]; then
                if [ ! -z "$(readlink "$ref")" ]; then
                    ref="$(readlink "$ref")"
                fi
            else
                echo "realpath and readlink not available. The following may not be the final path." 1>&2
            fi
            if [ -d "$ref" ]; then
                path="$(cd "$ref"; pwd -P)"
            else
                path="$(cd $(dirname "$ref"); pwd -P)/$(basename "$ref")"
            fi
        fi
    fi
    echo "$path"
}

Here is a macOS (only?) solution. Possibly better suited to the original question.

mac_realpath()
{
    local ref="$1"
    if [[ ! -z "$(readlink "$ref")" ]]; then
        ref="$(readlink "$1")"
    fi
    if [[ -d "$ref" ]]; then
        echo "$(cd "$ref"; pwd -P)"
    else
        echo "$(cd $(dirname "$ref"); pwd -P)/$(basename "$ref")"
    fi
}

Answer 2

This is a symlink resolver in Bash that works whether the link is a directory or a non-directory:

function readlinks {(
  set -o errexit -o nounset
  declare n=0 limit=1024 link="$1"

  # If it's a directory, just skip all this.
  if cd "$link" 2>/dev/null
  then
    pwd -P
    return 0
  fi

  # Resolve until we are out of links (or recurse too deep).
  while [[ -L $link ]] && [[ $n -lt $limit ]]
  do
    cd "$(dirname -- "$link")"
    n=$((n + 1))
    link="$(readlink -- "${link##*/}")"
  done
  cd "$(dirname -- "$link")"

  if [[ $n -ge $limit ]]
  then
    echo "Recursion limit ($limit) exceeded." >&2
    return 2
  fi

  printf '%s/%s\n' "$(pwd -P)" "${link##*/}"
)}

Note that all the cd and set stuff takes place in a subshell.

Answer 3

My answer here Bash: how to get real path of a symlink?

but in short very handy in scripts:

script_home=$( dirname $(realpath "$0") )
echo Original script home: $script_home

These are part of GNU coreutils, suitable for use in Linux systems.

To test everything, we put symlink into /home/test2/, amend some additional things and run/call it from root directory:

/$ /home/test2/symlink
/home/test
Original script home: /home/test

Where

Original script is: /home/test/realscript.sh
Called script is: /home/test2/symlink

Answer 4

Another way:

# Gets the real path of a link, following all links
myreadlink() { [ ! -h "$1" ] && echo "$1" || (local link="$(expr "$(command ls -ld -- "$1")" : '.*-> \(.*\)$')"; cd $(dirname $1); myreadlink "$link" | sed "s|^\([^/].*\)\$|$(dirname $1)/\1|"); }

# Returns the absolute path to a command, maybe in $PATH (which) or not. If not found, returns the same
whereis() { echo $1 | sed "s|^\([^/].*/.*\)|$(pwd)/\1|;s|^\([^/]*\)$|$(which -- $1)|;s|^$|$1|"; } 

# Returns the realpath of a called command.
whereis_realpath() { local SCRIPT_PATH=$(whereis $1); myreadlink ${SCRIPT_PATH} | sed "s|^\([^/].*\)\$|$(dirname ${SCRIPT_PATH})/\1|"; } 

Answer 5

Here's how one can get the actual path to the file in MacOS/Unix using an inline Perl script:

FILE=$(perl -e "use Cwd qw(abs_path); print abs_path('$0')")

Similarly, to get the directory of a symlinked file:

DIR=$(perl -e "use Cwd qw(abs_path); use File::Basename; print dirname(abs_path('$0'))")

Answer 6

function realpath {
    local r=$1; local t=$(readlink $r)
    while [ $t ]; do
        r=$(cd $(dirname $r) && cd $(dirname $t) && pwd -P)/$(basename $t)
        t=$(readlink $r)
    done
    echo $r
}

#example usage
SCRIPT_PARENT_DIR=$(dirname $(realpath "$0"))/..