readlink

readlink prints value of a symbolic link or canonical file name.

• GNU Coreutils Project Homepage [EN]

• GNU Coreutils [EN] @ Fedora Package
• GNU Coreutils [EN] @ Homebrew Formula

Documentation

• readlink [EN] @ GNU Coreutils Manual

• man 1 'readlink' [EN]

Syntax

readlink [PARAMETER ...] FILE

Parameters

-e, --canonicalize-existing

Canonicalize by following every symlink in every component of the given name recursively, all components must exist.

-f, --canonicalize

Canonicalize by following every symlink in every component of the given name recursively; all but the last component must exist.

-m, --canonicalize-missing

Canonicalize by following every symlink in every component of the given name recursively, without requirements on components existence.

-n, --no-newline

Do not output the trailing newline.

-q, --quiet, -s, --silent

Suppress most error messages.

Examples

Get the absolute path of a file

readlink --canonicalize-missing '.profile'

Output:

/home/alex/.profile

Get the absolute path to a file

readlink --canonicalize-missing '.profile' | xargs dirname

Output:

/home/alex