Ln (Unix)

ln is a shell command for creating a link file to an existing file or directory. By default, the command creates a hard link, but with the -s command line option, it creates a symbolic link. Most systems disallow a hard link to a directory since such links could disrupt the structure of a file system and interfere with the operation of other utilities. The command can create a symbolic link to non-existent file. The command appeared in Issue 2 of the X/Open Portability Guidelines. The version in GNU Core Utilities was written by Mike Parker and David MacKenzie. The command is available in Windows via UnxUtils and has been ported to IBM i. A link allows more than one path to refer to the same file. A hard link is a directory entry that refers to a file's inode (an internal reference). A file can have multiple hard links – each referring to the same inode.