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  • the first example does not work when the link points to a relative path... Commented Nov 4, 2019 at 12:20
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    @inemanja Sure it does. But as I state, this is a text comparison. It treats different paths to the same target as different. If you want to test whether the target of a symbolic link is a particular file, rather than a particular path, use one of the methods I describe below. Commented Nov 4, 2019 at 12:46
  • It's not safe to treat file location as strings for that exact reason - the first example compares strings hence it shows that "/dir/file.txt" and "/dir/../dir/../dir/file.txt" are different files, and they are not. The second example is much more precise. Commented Jul 9, 2020 at 15:42
  • How about wrapping the path in $(realpath "../dir/../otherdir/file.ext") ? Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 12:21
  • @MogensTrasherDK How about that? I don't understand what you're asking. Commented Dec 10, 2021 at 19:53