link (Unix) - Misplaced Pages

Unix command

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link
Operating system	Unix and Unix-like
Platform	Cross-platform
Type	Command

The link utility is a Unix command line program that creates a hard link from an existing directory entry to a new directory entry. It does no more than call the link() system function. It does not perform error checking before attempting to create the link. It returns an exit status that indicates whether the link was created (0 if successful, -1 if an error occurred). Creating a link to a directory entry that is itself a directory requires elevated privileges.

The ln command is more commonly used as it provides more features: it can create both hard links and symbolic links, and has error checking.

Synopsis

link (-s) source target

source: The pathname of an existing folder or file.
target: The name of the link to be created.

Note that source must specify an existing folder or file, and target must specify a non-existent entry in an existing directory.

Standards

The link command is part of the Single UNIX Specification (SUS), specified in the Shell and Utilities volume of the IEEE 1003.1-2001 standard.

External links

IEEE Std 1003.1-2004 Shell & Utilities volume—list of SUS utilities.
GNU Coreutils link documentation.

v t e Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins
File system	cat chattr chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fuser ln ls mkdir mv pax pwd rm rmdir split tee touch type umask
Processes	at bg crontab fg kill nice ps time
User environment	env exit logname mesg talk tput uname who write
Text processing	awk basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fold head iconv join m4 more nl paste patch printf read sed sort strings tail tr troff uniq vi wc xargs
Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait
Searching	find grep
Documentation	man
Software development	ar ctags lex make nm strip yacc
Miscellaneous	bc cal expr lp od sleep true and false
Categories Standard Unix programs Unix SUS2008 utilities List

v t e GNU Core Utilities command-line interface programs
File system	chcon chmod chown chgrp cksum cp dd df dir dircolors install ln ls mkdir mkfifo mknod mktemp mv realpath rm rmdir shred sync touch truncate vdir
Text utilities	b2sum base32 base64 cat cksum comm csplit cut expand fmt fold head join md5sum nl numfmt od paste ptx pr sha1sum shuf sort split sum tac tail tr tsort unexpand uniq wc
Shell utilities	arch basename chroot date dirname du echo env expr factor false groups hostid id link logname nice nohup nproc pathchk pinky printenv printf pwd readlink runcon seq sleep stat stdbuf stty tee test timeout true tty uname unlink uptime users who whoami yes

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Synopsis

Standards

See also

External links