Add Display The Target Of A Symbolic Link as a Unix TIL

2026-07-11 01:16:09 +00:00 · 2026-07-10 13:57:59 -05:00
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+# Display The Target Of A Symbolic Link
+
+I have symlinked binaries all over my machine. Many of them are configured via
+my [dotfiles setup](https://github.com/jbranchaud/dotfiles). There are also
+tools like `uv` that install CLI tooling in a canonical place and then symlink
+it to a more user-friendly location.
+
+`ruff` which I [installed as a CLI tool via
+`uv`](python/globally-install-cli-tool-with-uv.md) is a good example of this.
+When I look at the location of `ruff` via the `which` command, I get a `bin`
+directory that differed from where I expected `uv` to install it.
+
+```bash
+❯ which ruff
+/Users/lastword/.local/bin/ruff
+```
+
+When I `ls` that directory, I can see it is full of symlinked binaries (as
+annotated by the trailing `@` symbol).
+
+```bash
+❯ ls /Users/lastword/.local/bin
+ ./                         cursor-agent@        pplay@                       tmux-fork-repo@
+ ../                        figprev@             pyright@                     tmux-new-session@
+ agent@                     ghprs@               pyright-langserver@          v@
+ bic@                       git_better_branch@   pyright-python@              wait_for_port@
+ bip@                       local-clone@         pyright-python-langserver@
+ claude@                    nvims@               ruff@
+ command-history-preview@   pingf@               task*
+```
+
+To resolve one of these symlinks to their target location, I can use the
+`readlink` utility.
+
+```bash
+❯ readlink /Users/lastword/.local/bin/ruff
+/Users/lastword/.local/share/uv/tools/ruff/bin/ruff
+```
+
+And there it is, the actual directory where I expected `uv` to have installed
+`ruff`.
+
+See `man readlink` for more details.