Ever get irritated while traversing long paths in the IFS root file system? Create a shortcut to get there faster--and learn a little UNIX to boot.
UNIX practitioners know that the ln -scommand generates a symbolic link, a shortcut to a file or file path. On iSeries, the command is available through Qshell.
Here's the command syntax:
ln -s ActualFilename LinkFileName
ActualFilename is the name of the file that is to be linked to, and LinkFileName is the shortcut's name.
Let's take a simple example, using ln –s to shorten the path of a Web server's log folder.
The command wrklnk '/www/test/logs' shows us the logs using the original, long folder path (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: wrklnk '/www/test/logs' displays our Web server log files.
Use qsh to launch the Qshell command line:
qsh
ln -s creates a symbolic link from /www/test/logs to a shorter path, /tlogs:
ln -s /www/test/logs /tlogs
Exit lets us leave the Qshell command line:
exit
Now, view the logs again with a much shorter path, /tlogs:
wrklnk '/tlogs'
Success! Figure 2 shows that the shortcut gives the same result as the longer path did in Figure 1.
Figure 2: wrklnk '/tlogs' shows the same files that wrklnk '/www/test/logs' did before.
The root-level shortcut /tlogs can also be viewed from other IFS interfaces, such as iSeries Navigator, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: These views show the original path, /www/test/logs, and the shortcut path, /tlogs, from iSeries Navigator.
For more information, see the ln command reference.
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