Convert a symbolic link into an editable file or directory.

If it links to a directory, it will create it and make links in it to all of its original contents.

If it links to a file deep in a directory hierarchy (like remotedir/blahblah/interestingfile), it will re-create the whole directory hierarchy and finally copy the target file.

Just copy the lnedit file anywhere you want. I have it in my $HOME/.local/bin directory (which is in my $PATH.)

This is useful for example in this case (which often happens to me):

I am going to work with some colleague's data. My program needs to know about (most of) it, but I don't need to modify it all (and don't want to -- it's huge!). So first:

$ ln -s /home/colleague/bigdir .

Now I have a symlink bigdir -> /home/colleague/bigdir. I'm actually interested in modifying bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/data but leaving untouched bigdir/logs, bigdir/auxiliary_stuff and so on. So I just:

$ lnedit bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/data

Ta-da! Now I have:

bigdir/
bigdir/logs -> /home/colleague/bigdir/logs
bigdir/auxiliary_stuff -> /home/colleague/bigdir/auxiliary_stuff
bigdir/subdir/
bigdir/subdir/baby_steps ->  /home/colleague/bigdir/subdir/baby_steps
bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/
bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/f1 -> /home/colleague/bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/f1
bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/f2 -> /home/colleague/bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/f2
bigdir/subdir/subsubdir/data

I can modify data and still use all the other files without having copied anything else. It means that my program will run using all my colleague's files, except for the ones that I modified.

This program is licensed under the GPL v3. See the project license for further details.