View Source: SymLink - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A symbolic link. This is a file that points to another file, simply by storing the target file's path which may be relative to the location of the SymLink, or absolute. It is also marked as special type of file, just like directories, [FIFO]s etc.

Using links (whether they be hard or symbolic ones) you can break the strictly hierarchical structure of a FileSystem.

Most file related [system calls | syscalls(2)] like open(2) and stat(2) will operate on the referenced file instead of the link itself. Some of them have "SymLink-aware" counterparts that will operate on the SymLink itself instead, eg lstat(2) which [stat(2)]s the link instead of the linkee.

Though similar on the surface, [SymLink]s have little to do with [Windows]' "shortcuts" which are not supported at system call level. They're simply another plain file - for an application to work on the linkee rather than the shortcut itself, the programmer must add support for reading and honouring shortcuts to the application. Unlike [SymLink]s they're therefor rather limited in usefulness.

On [Linux] [SymLink]s are created with ln(1).

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The common error message "link: Too many levels of symbolic links" ([ELOOP]) usually means that you have a link that points to itself (directly or indirectly). -- StuartYeates

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Last edited on Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:54:07 pm by CraigBox

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