How does symlinking work in linux

Question

I installed django framework and going through the documentation I was instructed to run the django-admin.py but threw an error:

Command not found

I was Instructed in the documentation to try symlinking to django-admin.py from some place on my path such as

 /usr/local/bin

which has left me totally confused because I'm kind of new to linux

How did you install django? What distribution are you using? — loopbackbee, Dec 06 '13 at 17:03
Also, here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1951742/how-to-symlink-a-file-in-linux — Matt, Dec 06 '13 at 23:16

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-06T23:15:41.357

1

A symlink is a symbolic link. What you're doing is telling the operating system that, when a request comes in for path x, to treat it as path y.

So, if django wants a file at '/expected/path/to/file', but the file is really at '/actual/path', you would build the symlink so that request to the first are instead fulfilled by going to the second. The syntax would be:

ln -s /actual/path/to/file /expected/path/to/file

otherwise broken down as link command, symbolic option, target path, symbolic path.

edited Dec 06 '13 at 23:15

answered Dec 06 '13 at 17:04

Matt

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looks like @runnerup got to the heart of it while I was jabbering :) – Matt Dec 06 '13 at 17:05
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it is actually `ln -s TARGET LINK_NAME`. you got it the other way around – behzad.nouri Dec 06 '13 at 17:07
I did, what a bonehead move. Thanks for noticing. – Matt Dec 06 '13 at 23:12

How does symlinking work in linux

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