LN
Section: POSIX Programmer's Manual (1P)
Updated: 2017
Page Index
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.
The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult
the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
ln
--- link files
SYNOPSIS
ln [-fs] [-L|-P] source_file target_file
ln [-fs] [-L|-P] source_file... target_dir
DESCRIPTION
In the first synopsis form, the
ln
utility shall create a new directory entry (link) at the
destination path specified by the
target_file
operand. If the
-s
option is specified, a symbolic link shall be created for the file
specified by the
source_file
operand. This first synopsis form shall be assumed when the final
operand does not name an existing directory; if more than two operands
are specified and the final is not an existing directory, an error
shall result.
In the second synopsis form, the
ln
utility shall create a new directory entry (link), or if the
-s
option is specified a symbolic link, for each file specified by a
source_file
operand, at a destination path in the existing directory named by
target_dir.
If the last operand specifies an existing file of a type not
specified by the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2017, the behavior is implementation-defined.
The corresponding destination path for each
source_file
shall be the concatenation of the target directory pathname, a
<slash>
character if the target directory pathname did not end in a
<slash>,
and the last pathname component of the
source_file.
The second synopsis form shall be assumed when the final operand names
an existing directory.
For each
source_file:
- 1.
-
If the destination path exists and was created by a previous step,
it is unspecified whether
ln
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more with
the current
source_file,
and go on to any remaining
source_files;
or will continue processing the current
source_file.
If the destination path exists:
-
- a.
-
If the
-f
option is not specified,
ln
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more
with the current
source_file,
and go on to any remaining
source_files.
- b.
-
If the destination path names the same directory entry as the current
source_file
ln
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more with
the current
source_file,
and go on to any remaining
source_files.
- c.
-
Actions shall be performed equivalent to the
unlink()
function defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2017, called using the destination path as the
path
argument. If this fails for any reason,
ln
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error, do nothing more
with the current
source_file,
and go on to any remaining
source_files.
- 2.
-
If the
-s
option is specified, actions shall be performed equivalent to the
symlink()
function with
source_file
as the
path1
argument and the destination path as the
path2
argument. The
ln
utility shall do nothing more with
source_file
and shall go on to any remaining files.
- 3.
-
If
source_file
is a symbolic link:
-
- a.
-
If the
-P
option is in effect, actions shall be performed equivalent to the
linkat()
function with
source_file
as the
path1
argument, the destination path as the
path2
argument, AT_FDCWD as the
fd1
and
fd2
arguments, and zero as the
flag
argument.
- b.
-
If the
-L
option is in effect, actions shall be performed equivalent to the
linkat()
function with
source_file
as the
path1
argument, the destination path as the
path2
argument, AT_FDCWD as the
fd1
and
fd2
arguments, and AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW as the
flag
argument.
The
ln
utility shall do nothing more with
source_file
and shall go on to any remaining files.
- 4.
-
Actions shall be performed equivalent to the
link()
function defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2017 using
source_file
as the
path1
argument, and the destination path as the
path2
argument.
OPTIONS
The
ln
utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017,
Section 12.2,
Utility Syntax Guidelines.
The following options shall be supported:
- -f
-
Force existing destination pathnames to be removed to allow the link.
- -L
-
For each
source_file
operand that names a file of type symbolic link, create a (hard)
link to the file referenced by the symbolic link.
- -P
-
For each
source_file
operand that names a file of type symbolic link, create a (hard)
link to the symbolic link itself.
- -s
-
Create symbolic links instead of hard links. If the
-s
option is specified, the
-L
and
-P
options shall be silently ignored.
Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options
-L
and
-P
shall not be considered an error. The last option specified shall
determine the behavior of the utility (unless the
-s
option causes it to be ignored).
If the
-s
option is not specified and neither a
-L
nor a
-P
option is specified, it is implementation-defined which of the
-L
and
-P
options will be used as the default.
OPERANDS
The following operands shall be supported:
- source_file
-
A pathname of a file to be linked. If the
-s
option is specified, no restrictions on the type of file or on its
existence shall be made. If the
-s
option is not specified, whether a directory can be linked is
implementation-defined.
- target_file
-
The pathname of the new directory entry to be created.
- target_dir
-
A pathname of an existing directory in which the new directory entries
are created.
STDIN
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
ln:
- LANG
-
Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are
unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017,
Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables
for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine
the values of locale categories.)
- LC_ALL
-
If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the
other internationalization variables.
- LC_CTYPE
-
Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of
text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to
multi-byte characters in arguments).
- LC_MESSAGES
-
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and
contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
- NLSPATH
-
Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
Not used.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
- 0
-
All the specified files were linked successfully.
- >0
-
An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
None.
EXAMPLES
None.
RATIONALE
The CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS section does not require
ln
-f
a b
to remove
b
if a subsequent link operation would fail.
Some historic versions of
ln
(including the one specified by the SVID) unlink the destination file,
if it exists, by default. If the mode does not permit writing, these
versions prompt for confirmation before attempting the unlink. In these
versions the
-f
option causes
ln
not to attempt to prompt for confirmation.
This allows
ln
to succeed in creating links when the target file already exists, even
if the file itself is not writable (although the directory must be).
Early proposals specified this functionality.
This volume of POSIX.1-2017 does not allow the
ln
utility to unlink existing destination paths by default for the
following reasons:
- *
-
The
ln
utility has historically been used to provide locking for shell
applications, a usage that is incompatible with
ln
unlinking the destination path by default. There was no corresponding
technical advantage to adding this functionality.
- *
-
This functionality gave
ln
the ability to destroy the link structure of files, which changes the
historical behavior of
ln.
- *
-
This functionality is easily replicated with a combination of
rm
and
ln.
- *
-
It is not historical practice in many systems; BSD and BSD-derived
systems do not support this behavior. Unfortunately, whichever behavior
is selected can cause scripts written expecting the other behavior to
fail.
- *
-
It is preferable that
ln
perform in the same manner as the
link()
function, which does not permit the target to exist already.
This volume of POSIX.1-2017 retains the
-f
option to provide support for shell scripts depending on the SVID
semantics. It seems likely that shell scripts would not be written to
handle prompting by
ln
and would therefore have specified the
-f
option.
The
-f
option is an undocumented feature of many historical versions of the
ln
utility, allowing linking to directories. These versions require
modification.
Early proposals of this volume of POSIX.1-2017 also required a
-i
option, which behaved like the
-i
options in
cp
and
mv,
prompting for confirmation before unlinking existing files. This was
not historical practice for the
ln
utility and has been omitted.
The
-L
and
-P
options allow for implementing both common behaviors of the
ln
utility. Earlier versions of this standard did not specify these options
and required the behavior now described for the
-L
option. Many systems by default or as an alternative provided a
non-conforming
ln
utility with the behavior now described for the
-P
option. Since applications could not rely on
ln
following links in practice, the
-L
and
-P
options were added to specify the desired behavior for the application.
The
-L
and
-P
options are ignored when
-s
is specified in order to allow an alias to be created to alter the
default behavior when creating hard links (for example,
alias
ln='ln
-L').
They serve no purpose when
-s
is specified, since
source_file
is then just a string to be used as the contents of the created symbolic
link and need not exist as a file.
The specification ensures that
ln
a
a
with or without the
-f
option will not unlink the file
a.
Earlier versions of this standard were unclear in this case.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
chmod,
find,
pax,
rm
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1-2017,
Chapter 8, Environment Variables,
Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines
The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2017,
link(),
unlink()
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology
-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition,
Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.
In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear
in this page are most likely
to have been introduced during the conversion of the source files to
man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .