Added a cross-platform readlink() method¶

Contributed by
Titouan Galopin
in #17498.

PHP's readlink() function returns the target of a symbolic link. However, its behavior is completely different under Windows and Unix. On Windows systems, readlink() resolves recursively the children links of a link until a final target is found. On Unix-based systems readlink() only resolves the next link.

The new readlink() provided by the Filesystem component always behaves in the same way:

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public function readlink($path, $canonicalize = false)

When $canonicalize is false:

• if $path does not exist or is not a link, it returns null.
• if $path is a link, it returns the next direct target of the link without considering the existence of the target.

When $canonicalize is true:

• if $path does not exist, it returns null.
• if $path exists, it returns its absolute fully resolved final version.

Added a hardlink() method¶

Contributed by
Andre Rømcke
in #15458.

Although most of the times developers use soft or symbolic links, sometimes it's convenient to create "hard links". The behavior of hard links is similar to the way object references work: a hard link points to the exact same inode of the target file and you can even rename the target file without breaking the hard link.

The new hardlink() method of the Filesystem component lets you create single or multiple hard links to a given file:

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use Symfony\Component\Filesystem\Filesystem;

$fs = new Filesystem();
$fs->hardlink('file1.txt', 'hardlink1.lnk');
// fileinode('file1.txt') === fileinode('hardlink1.lnk')

// multiple hardlinks pointing to the same file
$fs->hardlink('file2.txt', ['hardlink2.lnk', 'hardlink3.lnk']);