Ever get irritated while traversing long paths in the IFS root file system? Create a shortcut to get there faster--and learn a little UNIX to boot.

UNIX practitioners know that the ln -scommand generates a symbolic link, a shortcut to a file or file path. On iSeries, the command is available through Qshell.

Here's the command syntax:
ln -s ActualFilename LinkFileName

ActualFilename is the name of the file that is to be linked to, and LinkFileName is the shortcut's name.

Let's take a simple example, using ln –s to shorten the path of a Web server's log folder.

The command wrklnk '/www/test/logs' shows us the logs using the original, long folder path (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: wrklnk '/www/test/logs' displays our Web server log files.

Use qsh to launch the Qshell command line:
qsh

ln -s creates a symbolic link from /www/test/logs to a shorter path, /tlogs:
ln -s /www/test/logs /tlogs

Exit lets us leave the Qshell command line:
exit

Now, view the logs again with a much shorter path, /tlogs:
wrklnk '/tlogs'
Success! Figure 2 shows that the shortcut gives the same result as the longer path did in Figure 1.

Figure 2: wrklnk '/tlogs' shows the same files that wrklnk '/www/test/logs' did before.

The root-level shortcut /tlogs can also be viewed from other IFS interfaces, such as iSeries Navigator, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: These views show the original path, /www/test/logs, and the shortcut path, /tlogs, from iSeries Navigator.

For more information, see the ln command reference.