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Linux symbolic links: how to go to the pointed to directory?


I have a project in its own directory:



/dir/to/project/



I have a symbolic link to that directory on the desktop:



/home/user/Desktop/project/



When I double click on that link, the directory window that opens is:



/home/user/Desktop/project/



instead of the real one, /dir/to/project.


The same happens with the command line (Bash).


Is it possible to get what I wish, i.e. go to the directory pointed to, instead of the symbolic one?


Note: the windows environment I am using now is Xfce, but I am also interested in a generic answer.



Answer



In bash the cd builtin uses -P and -L switches; pwd understands them in the same way:


user@host:~$ ln -s /bin foobar
user@host:~$ cd -L foobar      # follow link
user@host:~/foobar$ pwd -L     # print $PWD
/home/user/foobar
user@host:~/foobar$ pwd -P     # print physical directory
/bin
user@host:~/foobar$ cd -       # return to previous directory
/home/user
user@host:~$ cd -P foobar      # use physical directory structure
user@host:/bin$ pwd -L         # print $PWD
/bin
user@host:/bin$ pwd -P         # print physical directory
/bin

Moreover cd .. may be tricky:


user@host:/bin$ cd
user@host:~$ cd -L foobar
user@host:~/foobar$ cd -L ..   # go up, to ~/
user@host:~$ cd -L foobar
user@host:~/foobar$ cd -P ..   # go up, but not to ~/
user@host:/$

See help cd and help pwd. Note that you may also have an executable (i.e. not a shell builtin) like /bin/pwd that should behave similarly. In my Kubuntu the difference is the pwd builtin without any option uses -L while /bin/pwd by default uses -P.


You can adjust the default behavior of cd builtin by set -P (cd acts as cd -P) and set +P (cd acts as cd -L). See help set for details.


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