Symlink files or directories, falling back to copying on Windows
npm install symlink-or-copy
Symlink a file or directory to another place. Fall back to copying on Windows.
Made for use with Broccoli plugins, for "do what I mean" behavior.
``sh`
npm install --save symlink-or-copy
`js
const symlinkOrCopySync = require('symlink-or-copy').sync;
symlinkOrCopySync('src_dir/some_file.txt', 'dest_dir/some_file.txt');
symlinkOrCopySync('src_dir/some_dir', 'dest_dir/some_dir');
`
`js`
symlinkOrCopySync(srcPath, destPath);
Create a symlink at destPath pointing to srcPath.
On Windows, we may fall back to copying srcPath to destPath, preserving
last-modified times. However, do not rely on always getting a copy on
Windows (see Notes below).
If you pass a relative srcPath, it will be resolved relative toprocess.cwd(), akin to a copy function. Note that this is unlikefs.symlinkSync,srcPath
whose is relative to destPath.
If srcPath does not exist or is a broken symlink, we might throw an
exception, or we might create a broken symlink.
When we fall back to copying, symlinks at or beneath srcPath will be
dereferenced, and broken symlinks will cause exceptions.
We will throw an exception if destPath already exists. Thus in contrast tocp
Unix or ln, the following will fail:
`js`
// dest_dir already exists, and we might expect dest_dir/some_dir to be
// created. This does not work; pass 'dest_dir/some_dir' instead.
symlinkOrCopySync('src_dir/some_dir', 'dest_dir');
It is an error if the parent directory of destPath does not already exist.
When we symlink, if the file at srcPath` is a symlink as well, it will be
dereferenced before symlinking, to avoid runaway symlink indirection.
* Symlinks technically work on Windows, but they require special rights. For
users with those rights, symlinks are used, but when not available, a
combination of junctions and copying is used to mimic the behavior somewhat
performantly.
* There intentionally isn't an asynchronous version. It's not clear that we
need or want one. Before sending a patch to add an async version, please
share your use case on the issue tracker.