| Lesson 6 | Creating a link to a file |
| Objective | Create symbolic links using ln -s. |
Creating a link to file in Unix
You can create either hard links or symbolic links. Symbolic links are sometimes called soft links or symlinks.
Because hard links have limitations, most people use symbolic links, which will be described in this lesson.
Create a symbolic link
To create a symbolic link, use the
The filename can be a regular file or a directory. In directory listings, a symbolic link looks just like a regular file unless you use
ln command with the -s option. It has the following form:
% ln -s filename linkname
The filename can be a regular file or a directory. In directory listings, a symbolic link looks just like a regular file unless you use
ls with -F.
Recall that -F appends a / to directory names. Well, with -F, ls also appends an at sign (@) to the names of symbolic links.
To determine the actual location to which the link points, use
ls -l
The following diagram shows how to create and list symbolic links:
- This command simply displays the directory contents before you create the link
- This command takes the first file name, project/qa/test_plan.html and creates a symbolic link to it. The link will be named qa.html.
- The directory now contains a symbolic link named qa.html. The -F option appends an character to help identify the link.
- The ls -l output uses an arrow (->) to reveal the actual file, which the qa.html link points to. Note the access mode. The file type field, the leftmost character, shows the letter l, which stands for link.
Working with Symbolic Links
You can unintentionally break a symbolic link if you rename or delete the item that a symbolic link points to.
The link will no longer point to anything.
In the next lesson, the find command to search for files will be discussed.
In the next lesson, the find command to search for files will be discussed.