Symbolic link

For the Microsoft data exchange format, see Symbolic Link (SYLK).

In computing, a symbolic link (a.k.a. symlink or soft link) is a special computer file that refers to another file or directory by storing a path to it, thus providing an alternative access path without duplicating the target's content. Apps that use operating system services may treat a symbolic link like other files or directories, and would not know that it is a symbolic link unless they investigate its nature. A symbolic link will break if its target is moved or deleted.

Symbolic links are supported in Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows, although they impose varying limitations on them. Alternatives to symbolic links include hard links, shortcut files, and Windows shell objects.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.