Tuesday, October 24, 2006 6:34 PM
bart
Windows Vista - Creating symbolic links with C#
Windows Vista has support for symbolic links, and of course the API does too. Support for hard links has been there since the Windows 2000 days and won't be covered here.
Here's a piece of sample code:
using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
namespace mklink
{
class Program
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool CreateSymbolicLink(string lpSymlinkFileName, string lpTargetFileName, int dwFlags);
static int SYMLINK_FLAG_DIRECTORY = 1;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//
// Symbolic file link bar.txt <<===>> foo.txt
//
string symF = "bar.txt";
string targetF = "foo.txt";
Console.WriteLine(">echo \"Hello World\" > {0}", targetF);
StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(targetF);
sw.WriteLine("Hello World");
sw.Close();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">mklink {0} {1}", symF, targetF);
if(CreateSymbolicLink(symF, targetF, 0))
Console.WriteLine("symbolic link created for {0} <<===>> {1}", symF, targetF);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">type {0}", targetF);
Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(targetF));
Console.WriteLine();
//
// Symbolic directory link bar <<===>> foo
//
string symD = "bar";
string targetD = "foo";
Console.WriteLine(">mkdir {0}", targetD);
Directory.CreateDirectory(targetD);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">echo \"Hello World\" > {0}\\demo.txt", targetD);
StreamWriter sw2 = File.CreateText(targetD + \\demo.txt);
sw2.WriteLine("Hello World");
sw2.Close();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">mklink /d {0} {1}", symD, targetD);
if (CreateSymbolicLink(symD, targetD, SYMLINK_FLAG_DIRECTORY))
Console.WriteLine("symbolic link created for {0} <<===>> {1}", symD, targetD);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">dir {0}", targetD);
foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(targetD))
Console.WriteLine(f);
}
}
}
System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
namespace mklink
{
class Program
{
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
static extern bool CreateSymbolicLink(string lpSymlinkFileName, string lpTargetFileName, int dwFlags);
static int SYMLINK_FLAG_DIRECTORY = 1;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//
// Symbolic file link bar.txt <<===>> foo.txt
//
string symF = "bar.txt";
string targetF = "foo.txt";
Console.WriteLine(">echo \"Hello World\" > {0}", targetF);
StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText(targetF);
sw.WriteLine("Hello World");
sw.Close();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">mklink {0} {1}", symF, targetF);
if(CreateSymbolicLink(symF, targetF, 0))
Console.WriteLine("symbolic link created for {0} <<===>> {1}", symF, targetF);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">type {0}", targetF);
Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(targetF));
Console.WriteLine();
//
// Symbolic directory link bar <<===>> foo
//
string symD = "bar";
string targetD = "foo";
Console.WriteLine(">mkdir {0}", targetD);
Directory.CreateDirectory(targetD);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">echo \"Hello World\" > {0}\\demo.txt", targetD);
StreamWriter sw2 = File.CreateText(targetD + \\demo.txt);
sw2.WriteLine("Hello World");
sw2.Close();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">mklink /d {0} {1}", symD, targetD);
if (CreateSymbolicLink(symD, targetD, SYMLINK_FLAG_DIRECTORY))
Console.WriteLine("symbolic link created for {0} <<===>> {1}", symD, targetD);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(">dir {0}", targetD);
foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(targetD))
Console.WriteLine(f);
}
}
} The code is pretty self-explanatory. Compile it and execute it in an empty folder. The following directory structure will be created:
C:.
│ foo.txt
│
└───bar
demo.txt
Next, symbolic links are created, yielding the following result:
C:.
│ bar.txt
│ foo.txt
│
├───bar
│ demo.txt
│
└───foo
demo.txt
Indicated in red are the symbolic links: one for a file and another one for a directory. Below, the dir output and the Windows Explorer view are displayed:
Check out the mklink command in Vista too:
Enjoy!
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Filed under: Windows Vista, C# 2.0