ln(1B)

NAME

     ln - make hard or symbolic links to files

SYNOPSIS

     /usr/ucb/ln [-fs] filename [linkname]

     /usr/ucb/ln [-fs] pathname... directory

DESCRIPTION

     The /usr/ucb/ln  utility  creates  an  additional  directory
     entry,  called a link, to a file or directory. Any number of
     links can be assigned to a file.  The number of  links  does
     not  affect other file attributes such as size, protections,
     data, etc.

     filename is the name of  the  original  file  or  directory.
     linkname  is  the  new  name  to  associate with the file or
     filename.  If linkname is omitted,  the  last  component  of
     filename is used as the name of the link.

     If the last argument is the name of  a  directory,  symbolic
     links are made in that directory for each pathname argument;
     /usr/ucb/ln uses the last component of each pathname as  the
     name of each link in the named directory.

     A hard link (the default) is a standard directory entry just
     like the one made when the file was created.  Hard links can
     only be made to existing files.  Hard links cannot  be  made
     across file systems (disk partitions, mounted file systems).
     To remove a file, all hard links  to  it  must  be  removed,
     including  the  name by which it was first created; removing
     the last hard link releases the inode  associated  with  the
     file.

     A symbolic link, made with  the  -s  option,  is  a  special
     directory  entry that points to another named file. Symbolic
     links can span file systems and point  to  directories.   In
     fact,  you  can create a symbolic link that points to a file
     that is currently absent from the file system; removing  the
     file that it points to does not affect or alter the symbolic
     link itself.

     A symbolic link to a directory behaves differently than  you
     might  expect  in  certain  cases.  While an ls(1) on such a
     link displays the files in the pointed-to directory, an  `ls
     -l' displays information about the link itself:

          example% /usr/ucb/ln -s dir link
          example% ls link
          file1 file2 file3 file4
          example% ls -l link
          lrwxrwxrwx  1 user            7 Jan 11 23:27 link -> dir

     When you use cd(1) to change to a directory through  a  sym-
     bolic  link,  you  wind up in the pointed-to location within
     the file system.  This means that  the  parent  of  the  new
     working  directory  is  not the parent of the symbolic link,
     but rather, the parent of  the  pointed-to  directory.   For
     instance,  in the following case the final working directory
     is /usr and not /home/user/linktest.

          example% pwd
          /home/user/linktest
          example% /usr/ucb/ln -s /var/tmp symlink
          example% cd symlink
          example% cd ..
          example% pwd
          /usr

     C shell user's can avoid any resulting  navigation  problems
     by using the pushd and popd built-in commands instead of cd.

OPTIONS

     -f    Force a hard link to a directory. This option is  only
           available  to  the super-user, and should be used with
           extreme caution.

     -s    Create a symbolic link or links.

USAGE

     See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior  of  ln
     when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2
    **31 bytes).

EXAMPLES

     Example 1: The /usr/ucb/ln command

     The commands below illustrate the effects of  the  different
     forms of the /usr/ucb/ln command:

     example% /usr/ucb/ln file link
     example% ls -F file link
     file   link
     example% /usr/ucb/ln -s file symlink
     example% ls -F file symlink
     file   symlink@
     example% ls -li file link symlink
      10606 -rw-r--r--  2 user            0 Jan 12 00:06 file
      10606 -rw-r--r--  2 user            0 Jan 12 00:06 link
      10607 lrwxrwxrwx  1 user            4 Jan 12 00:06 symlink -> file

     example% /usr/ucb/ln -s nonesuch devoid
     example% ls -F devoid
     devoid@
     example% cat devoid
     devoid: No such file or directory
     example% /usr/ucb/ln -s /proto/bin/* /tmp/bin
     example% ls -F /proto/bin /tmp/bin
     /proto/bin:
     x*      y*      z*

     /tmp/bin:
     x@      y@      z@

ATTRIBUTES

     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:

     ____________________________________________________________
    |       ATTRIBUTE TYPE        |       ATTRIBUTE VALUE       |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|
    | Availability                | SUNWscpu                    |
    |_____________________________|_____________________________|

SEE ALSO

     cp(1), ls(1), mv(1), rm(1), link(2),  readlink(2),  stat(2),
     symlink(2), attributes(5), largefile(5)

NOTES

     When the last argument  is  a  directory,  simple  basenames
     should not be used for pathname arguments.  If a basename is
     used, the resulting symbolic link points to itself:

          example% /usr/ucb/ln -s file /tmp
          example% ls -l /tmp/file
          lrwxrwxrwx  1 user            4 Jan 12 00:16 /tmp/file -> file
          example% cat /tmp/file
          /tmp/file: Too many levels of symbolic links

     To avoid this problem, use  full  pathnames,  or  prepend  a
     reference to the PWD variable to files in the working direc-
     tory:

          example% rm /tmp/file
          example% /usr/ucb/ln -s $PWD/file /tmp
          lrwxrwxrwx  1 user 4       Jan 12 00:16 /tmp/file ->
          /home/user/subdir/file