Check if file is symlink in python

To determine if a directory entry is a symlink use this:

os.path.islink(path)

Return True if path refers to a directory entry that is a symbolic link. Always False if symbolic links are not supported.

For instance, given:

drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 2011-11-10 08:14 bin/drwxrwxrwx   1 root root    57 2011-07-10 05:11 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-2..>>> import os.path>>> os.path.islink('initrd.img')True>>> os.path.islink('bin')False

For python 3.4 and up, you can use the Path class

from pathlib import Path# rpd is a symbolic link>>> Path('rdp').is_symlink()True>>> Path('README').is_symlink()False

You have to be careful when using the is_symlink() method. It will return True even the target of the link is non-existent as long as the the named object is a symlink. For example (Linux/Unix):

ln -s ../nonexistentfile flnk

Then, in your current directory fire up python

>>> from pathlib import Path>>> Path('flnk').is_symlink()True>>> Path('flnk').exists()False

The programmer has to decide what he/she realy wants. Python 3 seems to have renamed a lots of classes. It might be worthwhile to read the manual page for the Path class: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html

Without the intention to bloat this topic, but I was redirected to this page as I was looking for symlink's to find them and convert them to real files and found this script within the python tools library.

#Source https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Tools/scripts/mkreal.pyimport sysimport osfrom stat import *BUFSIZE = 32*1024def mkrealfile(name):    st = os.stat(name) # Get the mode    mode = S_IMODE(st[ST_MODE])    linkto = os.readlink(name) # Make sure again it's a symlink    f_in = open(name, 'r') # This ensures it's a file    os.unlink(name)    f_out = open(name, 'w')    while 1:        buf = f_in.read(BUFSIZE)        if not buf: break        f_out.write(buf)    del f_out # Flush data to disk before changing mode    os.chmod(name, mode)    mkrealfile("/Users/test/mysymlink")