Question

I would like to delete the symlink along with the source directory.

For example –

ls -lrt
testsymlink -> /user/temp/testdir

I would like to remove both testsymlink and /user/temp/testdir. Consider that I know the only the symlink name.

Any utility with python will do great.

Answer 1

You can use the result of os.path.realpath to detect and delete the symlink target. Example:

import os

# ./foo -> ./bar
filepath = "./foo"

if (os.path.realpath(filepath) != filepath):
    targetpath = os.path.realpath(filepath)

os.remove(filepath)
if (targetpath):
     os.remove(targetpath)