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ln(1) General Commands Manual ln(1)

NAME

ln - Make links between files.

SYNOPSIS

ln [--backup] [-b ] [-f|--force] [-i|--interactive] [-n|--no-dereference] [-L|--logical] [-P|--physical] [-s|--symbolic] [-S|--suffix] [-t|--target-directory] [-T|--no-target-directory] [-r|--relative] [-v|--verbose] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] <files>

DESCRIPTION

Make links between files.

OPTIONS

make a backup of each existing destination file
like --backup but does not accept an argument
remove existing destination files
prompt whether to remove existing destination files
treat LINK_NAME as a normal file if it is a symbolic link to a directory
follow TARGETs that are symbolic links
make hard links directly to symbolic links
make symbolic links instead of hard links
override the usual backup suffix
specify the DIRECTORY in which to create the links
treat LINK_NAME as a normal file always
create symbolic links relative to link location
print name of each linked file
Print help
Print version
<files>

EXTRA

In the 1st form, create a link to TARGET with the name LINK_NAME. In the 2nd form, create a link to TARGET in the current directory. In the 3rd and 4th forms, create links to each TARGET in DIRECTORY. Create hard links by default, symbolic links with --symbolic. By default, each destination (name of new link) should not already exist. When creating hard links, each TARGET must exist. Symbolic links can hold arbitrary text; if later resolved, a relative link is interpreted in relation to its parent directory.

The backup suffix is '~', unless set with --suffix or SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX. The version control method may be selected via the --backup option or through the VERSION_CONTROL environment variable. Here are the values:


none, off never make backups (even if --backup is given)
numbered, t make numbered backups
existing, nil numbered if numbered backups exist, simple otherwise
simple, never always make simple backups

VERSION

v(uutils coreutils) 0.7.0

EXAMPLES

Create a symbolic link to a file or directory:

ln [-s|--symbolic] /path/to/file_or_directory path/to/symlink

Create a symbolic link relative to where the link is located:

ln [-s|--symbolic] path/to/file_or_directory path/to/symlink

Overwrite an existing symbolic link to point to a different file:

ln [-sf|--symbolic --force] /path/to/new_file path/to/symlink

Create a hard link to a file:

ln /path/to/file path/to/hardlink

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.

ln (uutils coreutils) 0.7.0