Man page for LN
June 30, 2007 – 2:40 pmLN
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: August 2006
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NAME
SYNOPSIS
ln
[OPTION]… [–T] TARGET LINK_NAME (1st form)
ln
[OPTION]… TARGET (2nd form)
ln
[OPTION]… TARGET… DIRECTORY (3rd form)
ln
[OPTION]… –t DIRECTORY TARGET… (4th form)
DESCRIPTION
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.
When creating hard links, each TARGET must exist.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
- ––backup[=CONTROL]
make a backup of each existing destination file
- –b
like ––backup but does not accept an argument
- –d, –F, ––directory
allow the superuser to attempt to hard link
directories (note: will probably fail due to
system restrictions, even for the superuser)
- –f, ––force
remove existing destination files
- –n, ––no–dereference
treat destination that is a symlink to a
directory as if it were a normal file
- –i, ––interactive
prompt whether to remove destinations
- –s, ––symbolic
make symbolic links instead of hard links
- –S, ––suffix=SUFFIX
override the usual backup suffix
- –t, ––target–directory=DIRECTORY
specify the DIRECTORY in which to create
the links
- –T, ––no–target–directory
treat LINK_NAME as a normal file
- –v, ––verbose
print name of each file before linking
- ––help
display this help and exit
- ––version
output version information and exit
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
AUTHOR
Written by Mike Parker and David MacKenzie.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug–coreutils@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for
ln
is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the
info
and
ln
programs are properly installed at your site, the command
info ln
should give you access to the complete manual.