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I have a directory on a small disk:

/home/me

Here I have another directory with more space:

/data/work/mywork

I did this:

ln -s /data/work/mywork /home/me

And while in /home/me this:

wget htmlToSomeLargeFile

I thought SomeLargeFile would go straight to /data/work/mywork

but ls shows the opposite

ls/ll in /home/me shows "SomeLargeFile" and "mywork -> /data/work/mywork"

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  • What ls command did you use and what does it show? Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 14:19
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    Was /home/me an already existing directory? If so, is there now a symlink /home/me/mywork? Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 14:21

1 Answer 1

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The command ln -s /data/work/mywork /home/me puts a softlink inside the /home/me directory. It does not replace your /home/me directory. Once you create the softlink, you need to cd mywork to wget files into the linked directory.

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  • Then what's the point? Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 19:53
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    @AWE The point is the thing you expect, but if you have an existing directory of the same name, this surprising behavior occurs. Commented Feb 14, 2020 at 21:14

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