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Full Discussion: HardLinks and Softlinks
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting HardLinks and Softlinks Post 302556442 by pludi on Sunday 18th of September 2011 02:17:01 PM
Old 09-18-2011
A soft link is an directory entry that points, by name, to another directory entry, which may or may not exist. Since it's pointing by name the target can even reside on a different mount point.

Hard links, on the other hand, are directory entries that point to an inode used by another directory entry, and is still valid if the original entry is removed. Since all access information but the name is saved with the inode, both entries will always have the same access rights, timestamps, and user/group information. Also, due to sharing the same inodes, a hard link can't cross the boundary between mount points.
 

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LN(1)							      General Commands Manual							     LN(1)

NAME
ln - make links SYNOPSIS
ln [ -s ] sourcename [ targetname ] ln [ -s ] sourcename1 sourcename2 [ sourcename3 ... ] targetdirectory DESCRIPTION
A link is a directory entry referring to a file; the same file (together with its size, all its protection information, etc.) may have several links to it. There are two kinds of links: hard links and symbolic links. By default ln makes hard links. A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the original directory entry; any changes to a file are effective independent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may not span file systems and may not refer to directories. The -s option causes ln to create symbolic links. A symbolic link contains the name of the file to which it is linked. The referenced file is used when an open(2) operation is performed on the link. A stat(2) on a symbolic link will return the linked-to file; an lstat(2) must be done to obtain information about the link. The readlink(2) call may be used to read the contents of a symbolic link. Symbolic links may span file systems and may refer to directories. Given one or two arguments, ln creates a link to an existing file sourcename. If targetname is given, the link has that name; targetname may also be a directory in which to place the link; otherwise it is placed in the current directory. If only the directory is specified, the link will be made to the last component of sourcename. Given more than two arguments, ln makes links in targetdirectory to all the named source files. The links made will have the same name as the files being linked to. SEE ALSO
rm(1), cp(1), mv(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2) 4th Berkeley Distribution April 10, 1986 LN(1)
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