what is symbolic link in unix ???

Answer Posted / prince udirmaan deka

As we know that there are three file system in the UNIX. They are Ordinary File, Device File and Directory File. The fourth file is Symbolic File. Like unlike Hard Links, they don't stored any content but provides the pathname of the file. Symbolic Links are sometime often called as Soft links.

The ln command is used to create soft link with -s option.
For example:-
$ ln ln -s note note.sys
$ ls -il note note.sys

12345 rwx_wx_w_ Kumar 2 metal grp 12 feb 22 12:23 note
12346 lrw_rwxr_x Kumar 2 metal grp 10 mar 12 16:00 note.sys->

From the above example we can see two expressions:-
1) l(el):identifies the permission of the file.
2) ->(pointer): provide path name to the file note.

In soft link, we can see that inode number is different for each file.

It is important to realize that if we delete the file note.sym, then we recreate link easily. But if note file is deleted then would lose the content of data. In that case, note.sys points to non- existent file and becomes dangling pointer.

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