Script to automatically symlink all scripts to the correct directories with the TARGET_PATH directive.

!symlink-manager.md

Symlink Manager

I tried to use a bare git repo to version my dotfiles and my config files but I ended not liking it very much (I don't like to mess so much with the git working directory).

This is my first try on a custom setup, the local copies of the "scripts" and "dotfiles" repositories can be stored wherever on the system and this two command automatically linkup all the files to their target location using a custom comment format in the script files.

• dotfiles-link.sh

  The following script automatically symlinks all scripts to the correct directories with a declaration like

  # TARGET_PATH=<path>
  

  where <path> is the path of the future symlink. The link path can contain ~ and will automatically be replaced with the value of $HOME.

• dotfiles-clean.sh

  The dotfiles-link command also keeps a list of tracked files in ~/.cache/dotfiles/tracked that is used by this script to automatically delete broken symlinks when a tracked file goes missing.

dotfiles-clean.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Cleans unlinked dotfiles in all used folders
#
# Author: aziis98
# Date: 06/01/2021

set -euo pipefail

TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE=~/.cache/dotfiles/tracked

if [[ ! -e "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE" ]]; then
	echo -e "Run \"dotfiles_link\" at least once to start tracking symlinks!"
	exit 1
fi

DELETE_COUNT=0

while read tracked_file; do
	if [[ ! -e "$tracked_file" ]]; then
		DELETE_COUNT=$(($DELETE_COUNT + 1))
		sed -i "\|$tracked_file|d" $TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE
		rm -v "$tracked_file"
	fi
done < "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE"

echo "Deleted $DELETE_COUNT broken link"$([[ "$DELETE_COUNT" -ne 1 ]] && echo -e "s")

dotfiles-link.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Links all files marked with "TARGET_FILE=..." to their target location
#
# Author: aziis98
# Date: 06/01/2021

set -euo pipefail

TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE=~/.cache/dotfiles/tracked
mkdir -p "$(dirname "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE")"

# Extract a TSV table of SOURCE_FILE and TARGET_FILE
grep -e "^# TARGET_PATH=" -r . | sed -e 's/:# TARGET_PATH=/\t/g' | \
while read line; do
	SOURCE_FILE="$(echo "$line" | cut -f1)"
	TARGET_PATH="$(echo "$line" | cut -f2 | sed -e "s|~|$HOME|")"

	# Track directories with a symlink
	echo "$TARGET_PATH" >> $TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE

	ln -sfv "$(realpath -s "$SOURCE_FILE")" "$TARGET_PATH"
done

# Dedup the cache file
cat $TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE | sort | uniq > "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE.tmp"
mv "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE.tmp" "$TRACKED_DOTFILES_FILE"