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Concept
Ln (Unix)
Summary
The command is a standard Unix command utility used to create a hard link or a symbolic link (symlink) to an existing file or directory. The use of a hard link allows multiple to be associated with the same since a hard link points to the inode of a given file, the data of which is stored on disk. On the other hand, symbolic links are special files that refer to other files by .
The command by default creates hard links, and when called with the command line parameter creates symbolic links. Most operating systems prevent hard links to directories from being created since such a capability could disrupt the structure of a and interfere with the operation of other utilities. The command can however be used to create symbolic links to non-existent files.
appeared in Issue 2 of the X/Open Portability Guidelines. The version of bundled in GNU coreutils was written by Mike Parker and David MacKenzie.
The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities. The command has also been ported to the IBM i operating system.
Links allow more than one filename to refer to the same file as in the case of a hard link or act as pointers to a filename as in the case of a soft link. Both hard links and soft links can be created by the command. Specifically,
Hard links, also known simply as links, are objects that associate the filename with the inode, and therefore the file contents itself. A given file on disk could have multiple links scattered through the directory hierarchy, with all of the links being equivalent since they all associate with the same inode. Creating a link therefore does not copy the contents of the file but merely causes another name to be associated with the same contents. Each time a hard link is created, a that is a part of the inode structure gets incremented; a file is not deleted until its reference count reaches zero. However, hard links can only be created on the same ; this can prove to be a disadvantage.
Official source
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