#wsl #symlink #exe #create #cmd #binary #linux

bin+lib mklink

A mklink binary (not through cmd.exe) for Windows and a Linux version for WSL to create Windows-WSL compatible symlinks

1 unstable release

0.1.0 Oct 13, 2019

#15 in #wsl

MIT license

22KB
575 lines

mklink

This is primarily a way to easily call mklink from WSL. Linux symlinks created in WSL are incompatible with Windows, but Windows symlinks and directory junctions are compatible with WSL, so creating symlinks through mklink is preferable.

mklink has to be called through cmd.exe, however, and doesn't appear to be a standalone binary. When I tried to call cmd.exe /C mklink [...args] from WSL, it worked in bash but not programmatically, so I'm creating a better solution here instead.

This Rust project, when compiled for Windows, creates a Windows executable, mklink.exe, that recreates the functionality of mklink in cmd.exe, just in a standalone binary, by calling the Win32 APIs directly.

When compiled for Linux (assuming WSL), it creates a mklink binary that converts WSL paths to Windows paths and then execs mklink.exe.

Usage

 
 USAGE:
     mklink [FLAGS] <target> <link>
 
 FLAGS:
     -d, --dir
     -f, --file
     -h, --hard
         --help       Prints help information
     -V, --version    Prints version information
 
 ARGS:
     <target>
     <link>

Installation

You need to clone the repo and then run cargo install --path . both from Windows (PowerShell) and from WSL. To do this, you need to have Rust installed both on Windows and WSL. You could also try cross-compiling, but I think this way is easier.

Dependencies

~3.5MB
~63K SLoC