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I have testlink -> testtarget// and rm and rmdir report the following:

$ rm testlink/
rm: cannot remove 'testlink/': Is a directory
$ rmdir testlink/
rmdir: failed to remove 'testlink/': Not a directory

Of course I can remove the symlink with rm testlink, but why does Linux report that the symlink is both a directory and not a directory?

Paul
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  • Is `testtarget` a directory? – Arkadiusz Drabczyk Jan 23 '21 at 00:58
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    Anyway, this looks like a bug in GNU coreutils https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/29836/72304 – Arkadiusz Drabczyk Jan 23 '21 at 01:18
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    Or maybe even in Linux https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2014-11/msg00028.html – Arkadiusz Drabczyk Jan 23 '21 at 01:28
  • @ArkadiuszDrabczyk Yes, `testtarget` is a directory. – Paul Jan 23 '21 at 01:35
  • @ArkadiuszDrabczyk It seems that this behavior of Linux is intentional, rather than a bug. Anyways, it's probably too late to change, and having `rmdir src/` remove the directory that `src` points to -- turning `src` it into a dangling symlink *without removing it* (as it actually happens on BSD), doesn't feel like something that useful, either. –  Jan 23 '21 at 12:18

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