How can I display the target of a symbolic link?
The nonstandard external command readlink(1) can be used to display the target of a symbolic link:
$ readlink /bin/sh bash
If you don't have readlink, you can use Perl:
perl -le 'print readlink "/bin/sh"'
You can also use GNU find's -printf %l directive, which is especially useful if you need to resolve links in batches:
$ find /bin/ -type l -printf '%p points to %l\n' /bin/sh points to bash /bin/bunzip2 points to bzip2 ...
If your system lacks both readlink and Perl, you can use a function like this one:
# Bash
readlink() {
local path=$1 ll
if [ -L "$path" ]; then
ll=$(LC_ALL=C ls -ld -- "$path" 2>/dev/null) &&
printf '%s\n' "${ll#* -> }"
else
return 1
fi
}However, this can fail if a symbolic link contains " -> " in its name.