How do I find links in Linux?

Many Linux file managers offer the ability to create symbolic links graphically. If yours does, you can generally do this by right-clicking a folder or file and selecting “Copy”, and then right-clicking inside another folder and selecting “Make Link”, “Paste as Link”, or a similarly named option.

A link in UNIX is a pointer to a file. Like pointers in any programming languages, links in UNIX are pointers pointing to a file or a directory. Creating links is a kind of shortcuts to access a file. Links allow more than one file name to refer to the same file, elsewhere.

If you find two files with identical properties but are unsure if they are hard-linked, use the ls -i command to view the inode number. Files that are hard-linked together share the same inode number. The shared inode number is 2730074, meaning these files are identical data.

To remove a symbolic link, use either the rm or unlink command followed by the name of the symlink as an argument. When removing a symbolic link that points to a directory do not append a trailing slash to the symlink name.

The reason hard-linking directories is not allowed is a little technical. Essentially, they break the file-system structure. You should generally not use hard links anyway. Symbolic links allow most of the same functionality without causing problems (e.g ln -s target link ).

There are two types of links in Linux/UNIX systems:

  • Hard links. You can think a hard link as an additional name for an existing file. Hard links are associating two or more file names with the same inode . …
  • Soft links. A soft link is something like a shortcut in Windows. It is an indirect pointer to a file or directory.

Hard link is the exact replica of the actual file it is pointing to . Both the hard link and the linked file shares the same inode . If the source file is deleted ,the hard link still works and you will be able to access the file until the number of hard links to file isn’t 0(zero).

To make links between files you need to use ln command. A symbolic link (also known as a soft link or symlink) consists of a special type of file that serves as a reference to another file or directory. Unix/Linux like operating systems often uses symbolic links.

How do I use find in Linux?

The find command is used to search and locate the list of files and directories based on conditions you specify for files that match the arguments. find command can be used in a variety of conditions like you can find files by permissions, users, groups, file types, date, size, and other possible criteria.

One of the fields in the long listing output of the “ls” command is the “link count” of a file or directory.

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