In Linux it is possible to give more than one name to a file by
creating links. Notice that Creating a link to a file is not the
same as creating a copy of the file! Links are divided to
hard and soft ones.
They can be used for different purposes and they have diffenet
characteristics and functionalities.
The general way for creating a hard link is the following:
ln file_name link_name
Like:
ln mymemo mymemo_link
You can check the number of hard links to a file or directory by
using ls -l command with the name of the file. For
example, if I have a file called view.gif and use ls -l
to check its information, I'll see an output like the following:
Wed Nov 10-->ls -l view.gif
-rw-r--r-- 1 mg users 0 Nov 10 11:50 view.gif
Number 1 in the secnd column tells us that there is only one hard
link, which refers to the physical content of the file on the drive. But
after we create another name for the file by making a hard link to it
in the following way:
ln view.gif viewln.gif
If we use ls -l command to check the file information
again,
we will see the following output:
Wed Nov 10-->ls -l view.gif
-rw-r--r-- 2 mg users 0 Nov 10 11:50 view.gif
Now, number 2 in the second column suggets that there are two
names, i.e. two hard links referring to the same physical contents.
The general way for creating a soft link is the following:
ln -s file_name link_name
Like:
ln -s view.gif view_slink.gif
