Need help removing symbolic link

[johndrake]

Hi All,

I'm trying to delete a symbolic link to a directory and to create a new one to a directory. The symbolic link is not getting deleted, although it says that it is. Each time I run this I should get the following:

link is /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build points at '/home/jpape/wlcbs_4'

Essentially this is what I am hoping to create each time run the code:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 jpape jpape 19 Jan 29 15:09 wlcbs_current_build -> /home/jpape/wlcbs_4

When I run the program second time, this is what I am getting:

link is /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
deleting /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build points at '/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build'

Here is my code:

sub set_links
{

#print "$path/wlcbs_current_build\n";
$link = "$path/wlcbs_current_build";

print "link is $link\n";

# delete link
# symbolic link information
if (-e $link)
{
print "deleting $link\n";
unlink($link);
}

# create symbolic link
symlink("$path/$max_wlcbs","$path/wlcbs_current_build") ||
die "cannot symlink $path/$min_wlcbs $path/$max_wlcbs";

# symbolic link information
if (defined($x = readlink("$path/wlcbs_current_build")))
{
print "$path/wlcbs_current_build points at '$x'\n";
}
}

Thanks!

-Joe

 

[KevinADC]

try adding a die function and see what it says:

unlink($link) or die "can't delete $link: $!";

 

[johndrake]

Hi Kevin,

It didn't help:

>r ./
./slink.pl
link is /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build points at '/home/jpape/wlcbs_4'

kbs80*train-/home/jpape
>r ./
./slink.pl
link is /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
deleting /home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build
/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build points at '/home/jpape/wlcbs_current_build'

kbs80*train-/home/jpape

Here is the code:

# delete link
# symbolic link information
if (-e $link)
{
print "deleting $link\n";
unlink($link) or die "can't delete $link: $!";
}

Thanks!

-Joe

 

[KevinADC]

the die function doesn't return an error message? Maybe unlink can't be used for this purpose.