1ln(1B) SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands ln(1B)
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6 ln - make hard or symbolic links to files
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9 /usr/ucb/ln [-fs] filename [linkname]
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12 /usr/ucb/ln [-fs] pathname... directory
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16 The /usr/ucb/ln utility creates an additional directory entry, called a
17 link, to a file or directory. Any number of links can be assigned to a
18 file. The number of links does not affect other file attributes such
19 as size, protections, data, etc.
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22 filename is the name of the original file or directory. linkname is the
23 new name to associate with the file or filename. If linkname is omit‐
24 ted, the last component of filename is used as the name of the link.
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27 If the last argument is the name of a directory, symbolic links are
28 made in that directory for each pathname argument; /usr/ucb/ln uses the
29 last component of each pathname as the name of each link in the named
30 directory.
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33 A hard link (the default) is a standard directory entry just like the
34 one made when the file was created. Hard links can only be made to
35 existing files. Hard links cannot be made across file systems (disk
36 partitions, mounted file systems). To remove a file, all hard links to
37 it must be removed, including the name by which it was first created;
38 removing the last hard link releases the inode associated with the
39 file.
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42 A symbolic link, made with the -s option, is a special directory entry
43 that points to another named file. Symbolic links can span file systems
44 and point to directories. In fact, you can create a symbolic link that
45 points to a file that is currently absent from the file system; remov‐
46 ing the file that it points to does not affect or alter the symbolic
47 link itself.
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50 A symbolic link to a directory behaves differently than you might
51 expect in certain cases. While an ls(1) on such a link displays the
52 files in the pointed-to directory, an `ls -l' displays information
53 about the link itself:
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55 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s dir link
56 example% ls link
57 file1 file2 file3 file4
58 example% ls -l link
59 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user 7 Jan 11 23:27 link → dir
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64 When you use cd(1) to change to a directory through a symbolic link,
65 you wind up in the pointed-to location within the file system. This
66 means that the parent of the new working directory is not the parent of
67 the symbolic link, but rather, the parent of the pointed-to directory.
68 For instance, in the following case the final working directory is /usr
69 and not /home/user/linktest.
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71 example% pwd
72 /home/user/linktest
73 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s /var/tmp symlink
74 example% cd symlink
75 example% cd ..
76 example% pwd
77 /usr
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82 C shell user's can avoid any resulting navigation problems by using the
83 pushd and popd built-in commands instead of cd.
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86 -f Force a hard link to a directory. This option is only available
87 to the super-user, and should be used with extreme caution.
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90 -s Create a symbolic link or links.
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94 See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of ln when encoun‐
95 tering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).
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98 Example 1 The /usr/ucb/ln command
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101 The commands below illustrate the effects of the different forms of the
102 /usr/ucb/ln command:
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105 example% /usr/ucb/ln file link
106 example% ls -F file link
107 file link
108 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s file symlink
109 example% ls -F file symlink
110 file symlink@
111 example% ls -li file link symlink
112 10606 -rw-r--r-- 2 user 0 Jan 12 00:06 file
113 10606 -rw-r--r-- 2 user 0 Jan 12 00:06 link
114 10607 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user 4 Jan 12 00:06 symlink → file
115 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s nonesuch devoid
116 example% ls -F devoid
117 devoid@
118 example% cat devoid
119 devoid: No such file or directory
120 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s /proto/bin/* /tmp/bin
121 example% ls -F /proto/bin /tmp/bin
122 /proto/bin:
123 x* y* z*
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125 /tmp/bin:
126 x@ y@ z@
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131 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
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136 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
137 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
138 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
139 │Availability │SUNWscpu │
140 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
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143 cp(1), ls(1), mv(1), rm(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2),
144 attributes(5), largefile(5)
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147 When the last argument is a directory, simple basenames should not be
148 used for pathname arguments. If a basename is used, the resulting sym‐
149 bolic link points to itself:
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151 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s file /tmp
152 example% ls -l /tmp/file
153 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user 4 Jan 12 00:16 /tmp/file → file
154 example% cat /tmp/file
155 /tmp/file: Too many levels of symbolic links
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160 To avoid this problem, use full pathnames, or prepend a reference to
161 the PWD variable to files in the working directory:
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163 example% rm /tmp/file
164 example% /usr/ucb/ln -s $PWD/file /tmp
165 lrwxrwxrwx 1 user 4 Jan 12 00:16 /tmp/file →
166 /home/user/subdir/file
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172SunOS 5.11 11 Mar 1994 ln(1B)