Environment variables in symbolic links

Question

Can we use $HOME or other environment variable in symbolic links?

I know about using relative paths ../../.config but sometimes are to many ../ :) something like ~/.config would be more comfortable, or use of $HOME.

Edit:

habbie's answer with psmears's comment is the answer, sorry my question was incomplete.

While (as other answers show) you can use environment variables when creating symbolic links (as with any shell command!), you can't actually have environment variable (or '~') references in the symlink itself

Answer 1

Symbolic links are handled by the kernel, and the kernel does not care about environment variables. So, no.

Answer 2

yes. no problem. actually you won't actually be using the $HOME variable in your link, so it won't work with smart solutions for groups of users for example. The variable is translated by the shell when executing the command, and the content of the variable is used in the link.

ln -s ~/test /tmp/test 

is expaned to

/<path>/<to>/home/test -> /tmp/test

Ah. and only the environment variables of the person calling ln will work. You can't store other peoples environment variables in the link. The variables are expanded before calling the command.

Answer 3

Yes you can.

ln -s $HOME/file/or/folder newname

You can set your own variables and use them, too. Add in your .bashrc (or .bash_profile):

export $MYPATH=/your/path