link (Unix)

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, >0 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.

Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins

File system	cat chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fsck fuser ln ls mkdir mount mv pax pwd rm rmdir split tee touch type umask

Processes	at bg chroot cron fg kill killall nice pgrep pkill ps pstree time top

User environment	clear env exit finger history logname mesg passwd su sudo uptime talk tput uname w wall who whoami write

Text processing	awk banner basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fmt fold head iconv join less more nl paste printf sed sort spell strings tail tr uniq vi wc xargs yes

Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait

Networking	dig host ifconfig inetd netcat netstat nslookup ping rdate rlogin route ssh traceroute

Searching	find grep locate whatis whereis

Documentation	apropos help man

Miscellaneous	bc dc cal expr lp od sleep true and false

List of Unix commands

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link (Unix)

Synopsis

Standards

See also

External links