Re: Function to find symlink target

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

* Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> [2022-05-31 15:32]:
> > Symlinks greatly help in that case, and do spare the hard
> > disk space.
> 
> Compared to duplicating all the files physically on the
> local machine?

Yes, symlinks can be in a different file structure than their actual
files on the hard disk.

For example:

~/hyperscope/1/2/3/my-file.pdf may be in a complex structure of other
documents, maybe in the same directory could be other 200 files, and
file could be related to ABC subject.

Same file in the public_html directory:

~/public_html/www.example.com/files/world/my-file.pdf 

then may give quite different context, different meaning in a different
file structure. And even file name in WWW structure should may become
more meaningful then the actual file name, that is matter of marketing
online. 

Then I use often this command to give me the actual WWW link to the
file provided file is in my public_html directory:

(defun loc ()
  "Locates the files, and if it is in public_html, it constructs the URL"
  (interactive)
  (let* ((files (dired-get-marked-files)))
    (kill-new (with-temp-buffer
		(while files
		  (let* ((file (pop files))
			 (uri (if current-prefix-arg file
				(public-html-rest file))))
		    (insert uri "\n")))
		(buffer-string)))))

If the file is then located in WWW structure, I would do `M-x loc' on
the file and get a result like:

https://www.example.com.com/files/world/2020/04/foundation.pdf

but if file is not located in WWW structure, I would get result like:

~/public_html/www.example.com/files/world/my-file.pdf 

-- 
Jean

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