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Linux Commands - unlink

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Let's say the ln command was used to create a symblic link between /home/john.doe/foo.txt and /home/jane.doe/bar.txt.

ln -s /home/john.doe/foo.txt /home/jane.doe/bar.txt

 

The ls (list) command with the -l (long) flag can be used to see that /home/john.doe/foo.txt is now symbolically linked to /home/jane.doe/bar.txt.

~]# ls -l /home/jane.doe/bar.txt
lrwxrwxrwx.  1  jane.doe  jane.doe  183  May 23 18:53  /home/jane.doe/bar.txt -> /home/john.doe/foo.txt

 

/home/jane.doe/bar.txt will now show as being linked to /home/john.doe/foo.txt.

/home/john.doe/foo.txt will not show as being linked to /home/jane.doe/bar.txt. 

~]# ls -l /home/john.doe/foo.txt
-rw-r--r--. 1 john.doe  john.doe  123456 Oct 26 15:38 /home/john.doe/foo.txt

~]# ls -l /home/jane.doe/bar.txt
lrwxrwxrwx.  1  jane.doe  jane.doe  183  May 23 18:53  bar.txt -> /home/john.doe/foo.txt

 

Every unique file in Linux has a unique inode number.

In this example, the inode of /home/john.doe/foo.txt is 33554566.

~]# ls -i /home/john.doe/foo.txt
33554566 foo.txt

 

And /home/jane.doe/bar.txt has a different inode, 15422514 in this example.

~]# ls -i /home/jane.doe/bar.txt
15422514 bar.txt

 

This shows that /home/john.doe/foo.txt and /home/jane.doe/bar.txt are not the same file.

The unlink command can be used to remove the symbolic link.

unlink /home/jane.doe/bar.txt

 

The ls (list) command with the -l (long) flag can be used to see that /home/john.doe/foo.txt is no longer linked to /home/jane.doe/bar.txt.

~]# ls -l /home/john.doe/foo.txt
-rw-rw-r--.  1  john.doe  john.doe  183  May 23 18:53  file.txt



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