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Ant's
Asked: 2012-07-12 05:33:45 +0800 CST

What is the advantage of using symbolic link? [duplicate]

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Possible Duplicate:
What is different symbolic link with hard link after unlik?
Symbolic links vs Hard links

I'm a new user to Ubuntu. And I do install some software. I see many tutorials uses symbolic link to a directory. Like this :

ln -s

Are there any advantages of using this way? Or it is the way it should be done?

12.04

1 Answers

  1. A symbolic link is a special file type whose data contains a filename. This filename is essentially a "soft link" to another file. Whenever the kernel encounters a symbolic link file type, it reads the filename in the data part of the file and goes to that filename. It's as if the Kernel traverses the namespace for the user. Symbolic links are nice in that they are links at the namespace level rather than at the block level (like hard links)1

    1Source:Read Seas

    Symbolic links can do 2 things:

    • Link to files across file systems (since that it's an indirect link)

    • Link to directories

    Symbolic links are done using the ln command with the -s option.

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