A
link is
an object that associates a filename with a file
. Several links can associate names with the same file
. Some
file systems support multiple hard links to a file
. If the last hard link to a
file is removed, the file itself is removed
. [
Note 1:
A hard link can be thought of as a shared-ownership smart
pointer to a file
. —
end note]
A
symbolic link is
a type of file with the
property that when the file is encountered during pathname resolution (
[fs.class.path]), a string
stored by the file is used to modify the pathname resolution
. [
Note 2:
Symbolic links are often called symlinks
. A symbolic link can be thought of as a raw pointer to a file
. If the file pointed to does not exist, the symbolic link is said to be a
“dangling” symbolic link
. —
end note]