.TH "hardlink" "1"

.SH "NAME"

hardlink \- Consolidate duplicate files via hardlinks

.SH "SYNOPSIS"

.PP

\fBhardlink\fP [\fB-c\fP] [\fB-n\fP] [\fB-v\fP] [\fB-vv\fP] [\fB-x pattern\fP] [\fB-h\fP] directory1 [ directory2 ... ]

.SH "DESCRIPTION"

.PP

This manual page documents \fBhardlink\fP, a

program which consolidates duplicate files in one or more directories

using hardlinks.

.PP

\fBhardlink\fP traverses one

or more directories searching for duplicate files.  When it finds duplicate

files, it uses one of them as the master.  It then removes all other

duplicates and places a hardlink for each one pointing to the master file.

This allows for conservation of disk space where multiple directories

on a single filesystem contain many duplicate files.

.PP

Since hard links can only span a single filesystem, \fBhardlink\fP

is only useful when all directories specified are on the same filesystem.

.SH "OPTIONS"

.PP

.IP "\fB-c\fP" 10

Compare only the contents of the files being considered for consolidation.

Disregards permission, ownership and other differences.

.IP "\fB-f\fP" 10

Force hardlinking across file systems.

.IP "\fB-n\fP" 10

Do not perform the consolidation; only print what would be changed.

.IP "\fB-v\fP" 10

Print summary after hardlinking.

.IP "\fB-vv\fP" 10

Print every hardlinked file and bytes saved. Also print summary after hardlinking.

.IP "\fB-x pattern\fP" 10

Exclude files and directories matching pattern from hardlinking.

.IP "\fB-h\fP" 10

Show help.

.PP

The optional pattern for excluding files and directories must be a PCRE2

compatible regular expression. Only the basename of the file or directory

is checked, not its path. Excluded directories' contents will not be examined.

.SH "AUTHOR"

.PP

\fBhardlink\fP was written by Jakub Jelinek <jakub@redhat.com>.

.PP

Man page written by Brian Long.

.PP

Man page updated by Jindrich Novy <jnovy@redhat.com>

.SH "BUGS"

.PP

\fBhardlink\fP assumes that its target directory trees do not change from under

it.  If a directory tree does change, this may result in \fBhardlink\fP

accessing files and/or directories outside of the intended directory tree.

Thus, you must avoid running \fBhardlink\fP on potentially changing directory

trees, and especially on directory trees under control of another user.

.PP

Historically \fBhardlink\fP silently excluded any names beginning with

".in.", as well as any names beginning with "." followed by exactly 6

other characters. That prior behavior can be achieved by specifying

.br

-x '^(\\.in\\.|\\.[^.]{6}$)'