How to determine if a linux symbolic link points to a directory or a file

Question

I have a directory that has symbolic links - some of them point to files and some of them to directories - how do I identify the ones poiting to directory in a shell script ( without any prejudice to names offcourse)

Use `readlink` to get the target of the symlink. – Sneftel May 08 '14 at 12:44 — Sneftel, May 08 '14 at 12:44
Thanks. ls -L and ls \`readlink \` seem to be identical – Yogesh Devi May 08 '14 at 13:12 — Yogesh Devi, May 08 '14 at 13:12

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 08 '14 at 12:56

use ls -L option to follow symlinks

This is the script that I used to differentiate between directories with contents from files/empty directories ( this will work only if directory has some contents -- in my case I am anyway interested in those directories that have some content so I am happy - but do suggest better options if any

cd dir
for i in `ls `
do
      if [ 1 -lt   `ls -l -L $i  | wc -l`  ]
      then
              echo "$i is a non empty directory" 
      else
              echo "$i is either an empty directory or a  file"
      fi
done

How to determine if a linux symbolic link points to a directory or a file

1 Answers1