hard links

[Ronnie Gauthier]

On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:39:10 -0600
"Collins Richey" <crichey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thought for the weekend.
> 
> What is the purpose of a hard link, and does anything in Linux land
> use hard links?
>

I guess the diff would be that when the last hard link is removed 
the space is free. With a soft(symbolic) link when the symbolic link is 
removed the linked to object still remains. I use sym_links all the time 
but do not recall ever using a hard link but I guess a good example of 
a sym_link is public_html and the www=>public_html folder. Many old 
scripts used www hard coded in so the www sym_link is fairly standard
when a linux account is created. If the user cluelessly deletes the 
www sym_link they dont also blow away the entire website as would happen
if it was a hard link. Guess thats sorta a backwards answer. But then 
I probably dont correctly understand the full uses of the ln command.

Ronnie
 
-- 
Ronnie Gauthier <ronnieg at instaguide.com>