NAME
ln - make links

SYNOPSIS
ln [ -s ] sourcename [ targetname ]
ln [ -s ] sourcename1 sourcename2 [ sourcename3 ... ]
targetdirectory

DESCRIPTION
A link is a directory entry referring to a file; the same file
(together with its size, all its protection information, etc.) may
have several links to it. There are two kinds of links: hard links
and symbolic links.

Macintosh file systems do not support hard links, so MachTen
creates symbolic links when hard links are requested on Macintosh
file systems. Hard links can still be created on NFS mounted file
systems, provided the mounted file system supports hard links. NFS
mounted file systems from MachTen NFS Servers will also change hard
link requests to symbolic links.

By default ln attempts to make hard links. This succeeds if the
underlying file system supports hard links, otherwise a symbolic
link is created. A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from
the original directory entry; any changes to a file are effective
independent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may
not refer to directories (unless the proper incantations are
supplied) and may not span file systems.

The -s option causes ln to create symbolic links. A symbolic link
contains the name of the file to which it is linked. The
referenced file is used when an open(2) operation is performed on
the link. A stat(2) on a symbolic link will return the linked-to
file; an lstat(2) must be done to obtain information about the
link. The readlink(2) call may be used to read the contents of a
symbolic link. Symbolic links may span file systems and may refer
to directories.

Given one or two arguments, ln creates a link to an existing file
sourcename. If targetname is given, the link has that name;
targetname may also be a directory in which to place the link;
otherwise it is placed in the current directory. If only the
directory is specified, the link will be made to the last component
of sourcename.

Given more than two arguments, ln makes links in targetdirectory to
all the named source files. The links made will have the same name
as the files being linked to.

SEE ALSO
rm(1), cp(1), mv(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2)