term% cat index.txt LN(1) General Commands Manual LN(1)
NAME
ln - make links
SYNOPSIS
ln [ -s ] name1 [ name2 ]
ln name ... directory
DESCRIPTION
A link is a directory entry referring to a file; the same file (to‐
gether with its size, all its protection information, etc.) may have
several links to it. There are two kinds of links: hard links and sym‐
bolic links.
By default ln makes hard links. A hard link to a file is indistin‐
guishable from the original directory entry; changes to the file are
effective regardless of the name used to reference the file. Hard
links may not span file systems and may not refer to directories.
The -s option makes symbolic links. A symbolic link contains the name
of the file to which it is linked. Except in special cases, such as
rm(1), unlink(2), lstat, and readlink, the contents of a symbolic link
is taken as the pathname of the file. Symbolic links may span file
systems and may refer to directories.
Given one or two nondirectory arguments, the second not being a direc‐
tory, ln makes a link to an existing file name1. If name2 is given,
the link has that name, otherwise name2 is understood to be the same as
the last component of name1.
Given two or more arguments, the last being a directory, ln makes
therein links to all the named files.
SEE ALSO
rm(1), cp(1), mv(1), link(2), stat(2)
LN(1)