Having trouble removing a symlink from your POSIX compliant (Linux/Unix/OSX/MyDogSamix) system? A quick Google yields some interesting results, which may or may not be helpful.
Most likely, you’ll find a bunch of condescending links highlighting the fact that you can just ‘rm <symlink>’ the symbolic link. Silly newb. However, if this is a directory, you might have problems.
The most important thing to remember is that to remove a symlink that points to a directory, you must not include the trailing slash.
In other words:
[fdev@warproof sites]$ ls ../sites/
all default sites
[fdev@warproof sites]$ rm sites/
rm: cannot remove `sites/’: Not a directory
[fdev@warproof sites]$ rm sites
[fdev@warproof sites]$ ls
all default
Notice that the first attempt (’rm sites/’) failed, while the second attempt (’rm sites’) did not. YMMV, but in this case, I blame my autocompletion (aka tab completion) - it automatically adds the trailing slash. Remove that slash, and you’ll remove the symlink.
May all your deletions be error-free.
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