In article <1193927046.999753.159290@57g2000hsv.googlegroups. com>,
Anoop <anoopkumarv@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Nov 1, 12:26 am, Jstein <jet...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey Anoop,
> >
> > Vakyail is correct (though not giving any explanation), and there is
> > very little reason for
> > having a 20 gig file copied six places on the same machine -- so long
> > multiple people are
> > not needing to make changes to that file, and/or have separate/
> > different versions.
> >
> > Look at the "ln" command, and it's 'man page'.
> >
> > Effectively, you can have ONE file, with MANY file names pointing to
> > it under unix.
> > When V. is saying create a link -- he means "make multiple names for
> > that same file"
> >
> > a "hard link" actually makes many file names for the same data
> > (potentially in different dirs)
> > a "soft link" makes a pointer to the original file, almost like a web-
> > link that explains where the file is stored.
> > Note: hard links must be on the same file-system/mount-point/logical-
> > disk as the stored data file.
> >
> > So, your main file may exist under one directory, like /var/reports/
> > weekly/my_big_file.dat
> > Your can create soft links to the file like this:
> >
> > ln -s /var/reports/weekly/my_big_file.dat /usr/ref/my_big_file.dat
> > ln -s /var/reports/weekly/my_big_file.dat /public/info/
> > my_big_file.dat
> > ln -s /var/reports/weekly/my_big_file.dat /home/shared/
> > big_file_pointer.dat
> > ln -s /var/reports/weekly/my_big_file.dat /opt/another/listing/
> > Nov_Fat_Report.txt
> >
> > When you look at the Link files, you will see a directory listing
> > like:
> >
> > lrwxr--r-- 1 bob dev 34 /usr/ref/my_big_file.dat -> /
> > var/reports/weekly/my_big_file.dat
> >
> > which shows you that this is not the actual file, but just a pointer
> > to the file itself.
> >
> > When you delete the file, you will also need to remember to clean-up
> > the links too, unless you
> > are just going to put a new version of the file down in the same place
> > & same name.
> >
> > That should be enough to get you moving.
>
> That perfectly answers my question - thanks to both of you.
>
> But if a windows user is ftp-ing the files, he should not see anything
> different right? He will just see a file and when he "gets" the s-link
> file, he will get the actual file ftp-ed over?

Correct. Almost all operations on a soft link access the actual file,
not the link itself. The exceptions are mostly commands that are
specifically intended to deal with file names rather than file contents
(e.g. ls, mv).

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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