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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-23T14:56:31+00:00

I have this in my makefile, rcFiles = .vim .vimrc .gitconfig .hgrc .screenrc .Xresources

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I have this in my makefile, 

 rcFiles =  .vim .vimrc .gitconfig .hgrc .screenrc .Xresources .dircolors .bashrc .ctags .bash_completion.d
 install:
     @$(foreach f,$(rcFiles), [ -f $(HOME)/$f ] || ln -v -s $(PWD)/$f $(HOME)/ ;  )

if .bashrc exits and I try

 make install

I get 

 ln: creating symbolic link `/home/user/.vim': File exists
 ln: creating symbolic link `/home/user/.bash_completion.d': File exists

and the process is aborted.
why no prevented this problem the conditional?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team
    ln -sfvn source target

    The --force flag makes it replace an existing link
    The --no-dereference avoids creating ‘subdirectory’ links for links to directory, if the link existed already (useful for the .bash_completion.d and .vim dirs)

    rcFiles =  .vim .vimrc .gitconfig .hgrc .screenrc .Xresources .dircolors .bashrc .ctags .bash_completion.d
 install:
     @$(foreach f,$(rcFiles), [ -f $(HOME)/$f ] || ln -v -f -n -s $(PWD)/$f $(HOME)/ ;  )

    Alternatively

         @$(foreach f,$(rcFiles), [ -e $(HOME)/$f ] || ln -v -f -n -s $(PWD)/$f $(HOME)/ ;  )

    To not only detect files (-f) but also directories. You might want to explicitely check for files and directories [ -f ... || -d ... ].

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