SHTOOL-MKSHADOW.TMP(1)

📦
version 2.0.8 · 3 versions
, in debian bookworm, debian trixie, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

💖 SHTOOL-MKSHADOW 💖

okay bestie, so this is a page from the GNU Portable Shell Tool manual set — specifically shtool-mkshadow, the lil corner of shtool that makes shadow trees out of symlinks. no cap, it's lowkey iconic. let's get into it ✨

✨ NAME ✨

shtool-mkshadow — GNU shtool create shadow tree using symlinks 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

shtool mkshadow [-v|--verbose] [-t|--trace] [-a|--all] src-dir dst-dir

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

so what does this actually do?? bestie it builds a shadow tree of src-dir over inside dst-dir. two things happen to make that work:

  • it recreates the whole directory hierarchy of src-dir underneath dst-dir
  • it makes the files of src-dir show up in the corresponding directories under dst-dir by linking them in with symbolic links

and here's the cute part: when src-dir can be reached via relative paths from dst-dir, then the relative symbolic links are used too. periodt. 💫

this high-level functionality was originally designed for developers to create copies of source trees. main character energy, fr fr.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

these are the command line options that are available, bestie — all three of them, we're listing them all, no skips:

  • -v, --verbose — display some processing information. she's chatty, she's telling you what's happening 💬
  • -t, --trace — enable the output of the essential shell commands which are executed. so you see the actual commands going down 👀
  • -a, --all — really shadow all files and directories in src-dir. the default is to skip CVS related files and directories, backup files, object files, etc. so like, default is picky, -a is "bring everyone" 🙈

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

#   shell script
shtool mkshadow -v -a . /tmp/shadow

look at her go. verbose, all files, current dir into /tmp/shadow. slay 🔥

👑 HISTORY 👑

the GNU shtool mkshadow command was originally written by Ralf S. Engelschall <rse@engelschall.com> in 1998 for Apache. it was later revised and taken over into GNU shtool. a glow-up for the ages, honestly 💜

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

and that's the whole vibe check, bestie 🫶 this page is from shtool 2.0.8, dated 18-Jul-2008 — so yeah, vintage but she still ate. go make some shadow trees, you got this 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from