Copy a Symbolic Link

This page answers questions like these:

• How to copy a symbolic link?
  
• How to duplicate a symbolic link?
  

Copying a Symbolic Link:

• Make a new symbolic link named TOLINK which points to the same place as the existing symbolic link FROMLINK.
• Pros: Copies plain files as usual. Copies links as links.
• Cons: Handles only a single file. Copies invalid links.

• Start with a link from FROMLINK to FILE (created by: ln -s FILE FROMLINK):
  
  $ ls -l total 1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser mygroup 4 Jan 30 13:40 FROMLINK -> FILE
  
• Copy the link FROMLINK to a new link TOLINK:
  
  $ cp -d FROMLINK TOLINK $ ls -l total 2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser mygroup 4 Jan 30 13:40 FROMLINK -> FILE lrwxrwxrwx 1 myuser mygroup 4 Jan 30 13:41 TOLINK -> FILE