How to get symlink target in Python?
The problem with os.readlink() is it will only resolve 1 step of the link. We can have a situation where A links to another link B, and B link is dangling.
$ ln -s /tmp/example/notexist /tmp/example/B$ ln -s /tmp/example/B /tmp/example/A$ ls -l /tmp/exampleA -> /tmp/example/BB -> /tmp/example/notexistNow in Python, os.readlink gives you the first target.
>>> import os>>> os.readlink('A')'/tmp/example/B'But in most situations I assume we are interested in the resolved path. So pathlib can help here:
>>> from pathlib import Path>>> Path('A').resolve()PosixPath('/tmp/example/notexist')For older Python versions:
>>> os.path.realpath('A')'/tmp/example/notexist'