Perl

Create a Symbolic Link on an SFTP Server

Demonstrates the Chilkat SFtp.SymLink method, which creates a symbolic link on the server. The first argument is the link target and the second is the new symbolic-link path.

Background: A symbolic link stores a path that points at another location, so it can span directories or filesystems and can even point at something that does not exist. A common use is a stable name like latest.log that is repointed at each day's file. Argument order is a frequent source of confusion — the target comes first, the new link path second — and note that how the target string is interpreted (relative to what) is up to the server's implementation.

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use strict;
use warnings;
use Chilkat2;

# Demonstrates the SFtp.SymLink method, which creates a symbolic link on the server.  The 1st
# argument is the link target and the 2nd is the new symbolic-link path.

my $sftp = Chilkat2::SFtp->new;

# Connect, authenticate, and initialize the SFTP subsystem.
my $port = 22;
my $success = $sftp->Connect('sftp.example.com', $port);
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# Normally you would not hard-code the password in source.  You should instead obtain it
# from an interactive prompt, environment variable, or a secrets vault.
my $password = 'mySshPassword';

$success = $sftp->AuthenticatePw('mySshLogin', $password);
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

$success = $sftp->InitializeSftp();
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

# Create a symbolic link "subdir/latest.log" that points at "subdir/2026-07-23.log".  The
# server's SFTP implementation determines how the target path is interpreted.
$success = $sftp->SymLink('subdir/2026-07-23.log', 'subdir/latest.log');
if (!$success) {
    print $sftp->LastErrorText, "\n";
    exit;
}

print "Symbolic link created.\n";

$sftp->Disconnect();