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Annotation of 43BSDTahoe/man/man1/ln.1, revision 1.1.1.1

1.1       root        1: .\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
                      2: .\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
                      3: .\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
                      4: .\"
                      5: .\"    @(#)ln.1        6.3 (Berkeley) 11/26/86
                      6: .\"
                      7: .TH LN 1 "November 26, 1986"
                      8: .UC 4
                      9: .SH NAME
                     10: ln \- make links
                     11: .SH SYNOPSIS
                     12: .B ln
                     13: [
                     14: .B \-s
                     15: ]
                     16: sourcename [ targetname ]
                     17: .br
                     18: .B ln
                     19: [
                     20: .B \-s
                     21: ]
                     22: sourcename1 sourcename2 [ sourcename3 ... ] targetdirectory
                     23: .SH DESCRIPTION
                     24: A link is a directory entry referring
                     25: to a file; the same file (together with
                     26: its size, all its protection
                     27: information, etc.)
                     28: may have several links to it.
                     29: There are two kinds of links: hard links and symbolic links.
                     30: .PP
                     31: By default
                     32: .I ln
                     33: makes hard links.
                     34: A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the
                     35: original directory entry; any changes to a
                     36: file are effective independent of the name used
                     37: to reference the file.  Hard links may not refer to directories
                     38: (unless the proper incantations are supplied) and may not span
                     39: file systems.
                     40: .PP
                     41: The
                     42: .B \-s
                     43: option causes
                     44: .I ln
                     45: to create symbolic links.
                     46: A symbolic link contains the name of the file to
                     47: which it is linked.  The referenced file is used when an
                     48: .IR open (2)
                     49: operation is performed on the link.
                     50: A
                     51: .IR stat (2)
                     52: on a symbolic link will return the linked-to file; an
                     53: .IR lstat (2)
                     54: must be done to obtain information about the link.
                     55: The
                     56: .IR readlink (2)
                     57: call may be used to read the contents of a symbolic link.
                     58: Symbolic links may span file systems and may refer to directories.
                     59: .PP
                     60: Given one or two arguments,
                     61: .I ln
                     62: creates a link to an existing file
                     63: .IR sourcename .
                     64: If
                     65: .I targetname
                     66: is given, the link has that name;
                     67: .I targetname
                     68: may also be a directory in which to place the link;
                     69: otherwise it is placed in the current directory.
                     70: If only the directory is specified, the link will be made
                     71: to the last component of
                     72: .IR sourcename .
                     73: .PP
                     74: Given more than two arguments,
                     75: .I ln
                     76: makes links in 
                     77: .I targetdirectory
                     78: to all the named source files.
                     79: The links made will have the same name as the files being linked to.
                     80: .SH "SEE ALSO"
                     81: rm(1), cp(1), mv(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2)

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