1ln(1) User Commands ln(1)
2
6 ln - make hard or symbolic links to files
7
9 /usr/bin/ln [-fns] source_file [target]
10 /usr/bin/ln [-fns] source_file... target
13 /usr/xpg4/bin/ln [-fs] source_file [target]
16 /usr/xpg4/bin/ln [-fs] source_file... target
19
22 In the first synopsis form, the ln utility creates a new directory
23 entry (link) for the file specified by source_file, at the destination
24 path specified by target. If target is not specified, the link is made
25 in the current directory. This first synopsis form is assumed when the
26 final operand does not name an existing directory; if more than two op‐
27 erands are specified and the final is not an existing directory, an
28 error will result.
29 In the second synopsis form, the ln utility creates a new directory
32 entry for each file specified by a source_file operand, at a destina‐
33 tion path in the existing directory named by target.
34 The ln utility may be used to create both hard links and symbolic
37 links. A hard link is a pointer to a file and is indistinguishable from
38 the original directory entry. Any changes to a file are effective inde‐
39 pendent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may not span
40 file systems and may not refer to directories.
41 ln by default creates hard links. source_file is linked to target. If
44 target is a directory, another file named source_file is created in
45 target and linked to the original source_file.
46 If target is an existing file and the -f option is not specified, ln
49 will write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more with
50 the current source_file, and go on to any remaining source_files.
51 A symbolic link is an indirect pointer to a file; its directory entry
54 contains the name of the file to which it is linked. Symbolic links may
55 span file systems and may refer to directories.
56 File permissions for target may be different from those displayed with
59 an -l listing of the ls(1) command. To display the permissions of tar‐
60 get, use ls -lL. See stat(2) for more information.
61 /usr/bin/ln
63 If /usr/bin/ln determines that the mode of target forbids writing, it
64 prints the mode (see chmod(1)), asks for a response, and reads the
65 standard input for one line. If the response is affirmative, the link
66 occurs, if permissible. Otherwise, the command exits.
67 /usr/xpg4/bin/ln
69 When creating a hard link, and the source file is itself a symbolic
70 link, the target will be a hard link to the file referenced by the sym‐
71 bolic link, not to the symbolic link object itself (source_file).
72
74 The following options are supported for both /usr/bin/ln and
75 /usr/xpg4/bin/ln:
76 -f Links files without questioning the user, even if the mode of
78 target forbids writing. This is the default if the standard input
79 is not a terminal.
80 -s Creates a symbolic link.
83 If the -s option is used with two arguments, target may be an
85 existing directory or a non-existent file. If target already
86 exists and is not a directory, an error is returned. source_file
87 may be any path name and need not exist. If it exists, it may be
88 a file or directory and may reside on a different file system
89 from target. If target is an existing directory, a file is cre‐
90 ated in directory target whose name is source_file or the last
91 component of source_file. This file is a symbolic link that ref‐
92 erences source_file. If target does not exist, a file with name
93 target is created and it is a symbolic link that references
94 source_file.
95 If the -s option is used with more than two arguments, target
97 must be an existing directory or an error will be returned. For
98 each source_file, a link is created in target whose name is the
99 last component of source_file. Each new source_file is a symbolic
100 link to the original source_file. The files and target may reside
101 on different file systems.
102 /usr/bin/ln
105 The following option is supported for /usr/bin/ln only:
106 -n If target is an existing file, writes a diagnostic message to
108 stderr and goes on to any remaining source_files. The -f option
109 overrides this option. This is the default behavior for
110 /usr/bin/ln and /usr/xpg4/bin/ln, and is silently ignored.
111
114 The following operands are supported:
115 source_file A path name of a file to be linked. This can be either a
117 regular or special file. If the -s option is specified,
118 source_file can also be a directory.
119 target The path name of the new directory entry to be created,
122 or of an existing directory in which the new directory
123 entries are to be created.
124
127 See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of ln when encoun‐
128 tering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
129
131 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
132 that affect the execution of ln: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
133 and NLSPATH.
134
136 The following exit values are returned:
137 0 All the specified files were linked successfully
139 >0 An error occurred.
142
145 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
146 /usr/bin/ln
148 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
149 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
150 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
151 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
152 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
153 │CSI │Enabled │
154 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
155 /usr/xpg4/bin/ln
157 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
158 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
159 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
160 │Availability │SUNWxcu4 │
161 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
162 │CSI │Enabled │
163 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
164 │Interface Stability │Standard │
165 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
166
168 chmod(1), ls(1), stat(2), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5),
169 standards(5)
170
172 A symbolic link to a directory behaves differently than you might
173 expect in certain cases. While an ls(1) command on such a link displays
174 the files in the pointed-to directory, entering ls -l displays informa‐
175 tion about the link itself:
176 example% ln -s dir link
178 example% ls link
179 file1 file2 file3 file4
180 example% ls -l link
181 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user 7 Jan 11 23:27 link -> dir
182 When you change to a directory (see cd(1)) through a symbolic link,
187 using /usr/bin/sh or /usr/bin/csh, you wind up in the pointed-to loca‐
188 tion within the file system. This means that the parent of the new
189 working directory is not the parent of the symbolic link, but rather,
190 the parent of the pointed-to directory. This will also happen when
191 using cd with the -P option from /usr/bin/ksh or /usr/xpg4/bin/sh. For
192 instance, in the following case, the final working directory is /usr
193 and not /home/user/linktest.
194 example% pwd
196 /home/user/linktest
197 example% ln -s /usr/tmp symlink
198 example% cd symlink
199 example% cd ..
200 example% pwd
201 /usr
202 C shell users can avoid any resulting navigation problems by using the
207 pushd and popd built-in commands instead of cd.
208SunOS 5.11 25 Mar 2004 ln(1)