ln(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | AUTHOR | REPORTING BUGS | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

LN(1)                         User Commands                        LN(1)

NAME         top

       ln - make links between files

SYNOPSIS         top

       ln [OPTION]... [-T] TARGET LINK_NAME
       ln [OPTION]... TARGET
       ln [OPTION]... TARGET... DIRECTORY
       ln [OPTION]... -t DIRECTORY TARGET...

DESCRIPTION         top

       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.  By default, each destination (name of new link)
       should not already exist.  When creating hard links, each TARGET
       must exist.  Symbolic links can hold arbitrary text; if later
       resolved, a relative link is interpreted in relation to its
       parent directory.

       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

       -i, --interactive
              prompt whether to remove destinations

       -L, --logical
              dereference TARGETs that are symbolic links

       -n, --no-dereference
              treat LINK_NAME as a normal file if it is a symbolic link
              to a directory

       -P, --physical
              make hard links directly to symbolic links

       -r, --relative
              with -s, create links relative to link location

       -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 always

       -v, --verbose
              print name of each linked file

       --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

       Using -s ignores -L and -P.  Otherwise, the last option specified
       controls behavior when a TARGET is a symbolic link, defaulting to
       -P.

AUTHOR         top

       Written by Mike Parker and David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS         top

       GNU coreutils online help:
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to
       <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright © 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute
       it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO         top

       link(2), symlink(2)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ln>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) ln invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
       from the tarball coreutils-9.4.tar.xz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/⟩ on 2023-12-22.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for
       the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original
       manual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

GNU coreutils 9.4              August 2023                         LN(1)

Pages that refer to this page: dh_link(1)pmlogmv(1)update-alternatives(1)link(2)symlink(2)hier(7)symlink(7)sln(8)