symlink confusion

[Ric Werme]

> Sorry about this primitive question, sometimes I get confused about
> the order.  As I have found online, the description is

> ln -s /path/to/file path/to/symlink.

> However, this still confuses me.  Which is which in my example?

Yeah, that's pretty poor wording.  I gave up on it a long time ago.

> Can someone enlighten me?  TIA.

I remember that it's much like cp, as is ln for hard links:

  cp  file-that-exists  new-file

  ln  file-that-exists  new-directory-entry

  ln -s  file-that-exists  new-symlink

Where "file-that-exists" really refers to a "directory entry" and the
file, or "bag of bits" that the directory entry points to.

Or, in the symlink case, "file-that-exists" doesn't have to exist.  Try
not to remember that, except when it's important.

$ rm -f foo bar

$ ln -s foo bar

$ ls -l foo bar
ls: cannot access foo: No such file or directory
lrwxrwxrwx 1 werme users 3 Nov 14 16:22 bar -> foo

$ cat bar
cat: bar: No such file or directory

$ echo foobar > foo

$ cat bar
foobar

  -Ric
-- 
ric at WermeNH.com                http://WermeNH.com/