How to make a file appear in multiple directories

Most files appear in only one directory. However, there are ways to make a file appear in more than one place.

You can use a hard link to add a file to a directory. For example, to make file /u/bob/janus appear also in directory ~/hot, use this command:

    % ln /u/bob/janus ~/hot

When a file is hard-linked to multiple directories, it lives equally in all of the directories. If it is deleted from one directory with the rm command, it will still appear in the others.

If your ln fails with a message about a "cross-device link", you can still get the same effect using a soft link; use the -s option in the ln command. For example:

    % ln -s /u/bob/janus ~/hot

Soft or symbolic links are different in one important respect from hard links. You can create a soft link to a file that does not exist. If the file still doesn't exist when the link is used, you'll get the message "No such file or directory."

John Shipman, john@nmt.edu Last updated: 1995/12/04 19:39:34 UT URL: http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/unix/ln.html