{"id":29,"date":"2008-08-23T19:36:17","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T23:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/?p=29"},"modified":"2008-08-23T19:36:17","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T23:36:17","slug":"manipulating-symbolic-and-hard-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/2008\/08\/23\/manipulating-symbolic-and-hard-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Manipulating symbolic and hard links on Linux and Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Symbolic and hard links are a very convenient feature of the Linux and UNIX operating systems – they enable you to create a short alias, use it to avoid duplicate data and much, much more. They are also availible on Windows to a limited extent – NTFS supports only hard links while FAT\/FAT32\/VFAT supports neither. However, using Cygwin<\/a>, you can use Windows shortcuts as symbolic links, but that is as far as it gets.<\/p>\n

To create symbolic and hard links in Linux, make sure you have the GNU Coreutils<\/a> installed, which provides the ln utility.<\/p>\n

To create hard links and shortcuts in Microsoft Windows, download ln for Windows<\/a> and place in a directory inside your %PATH%.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. ln -s TARGET<\/span> LINKNAME<\/span><\/span><\/code> – Creates a symbolic link (shortcut on Windows) called LINKNAME<\/span> that points to TARGET<\/span>. This works with both folders and files.<\/li>\n
  2. ln TARGETFILE<\/em> LINKNAME<\/em><\/strong><\/code> – Creates a hard link called LINKNAME<\/em> that points to the file TARGETFILE<\/em>. Only works for files; if you try to do it with a folder, the error message “ln: `\/folder\/name\/here<\/em>‘: hard link not allowed for directory<\/strong>“.<\/li>\n
  3. ln -i COMMAND<\/em><\/strong><\/code> – Runs ln interactive mode, where it will ask you before running the command COMMAND<\/em>, where the COMMAND is one of the commands above.<\/li>\n
  4. ln -f COMMAND<\/em><\/strong><\/code> – Forces ln to override any existing files while running the command COMMAND<\/em>. For example, if you do ln -s \/bin file<\/strong> and currently file<\/em> exists, you will get “ln: creating (symbolic\/hard) link `linkname<\/em>‘: File exists<\/strong>“. Use ln -f \/bin file<\/span> to make it work.<\/li>\n
  5. (Windows only)<\/span> You remove fake symbolic links (shortcuts) with del linkname<\/em>.lnk<\/strong><\/code> to accommodate the fact that it is a Windows shortcut. You can remove hard links the normal way you delete a file – del hardlinkname<\/em><\/strong><\/code>.<\/li>\n
  6. (Linux only)<\/span> You remove symbolic and hard links the regular way you would remove files – rm yourlinkname<\/span><\/span><\/code>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you found this article useful or helpful, please help Compdigitec<\/a> spread the word or please leave a comment. Don’t forget to subscribe<\/a> to Compdigitec Labs for more interesting articles!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Symbolic and hard links are a very convenient feature of the Linux and UNIX operating systems – they enable you to create a short alias, use it to avoid duplicate data and much, much more. They are also availible on Windows to a limited extent – NTFS supports only hard links while FAT\/FAT32\/VFAT supports neither. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[100,102,103,101,98,99,106,104,105],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}