If old and new are on different file systems, the file old is copied and deleted. The new name must belong on the same file system that the file is on. Confirmation is required if a file named new already exists, because copying has the consequence of overwriting the old contents of the file new . The effect is that future attempts to open file linkname will refer to whatever file is named old at the time the opening is done, or will get an error if the name old is not in use at that time. This command does not expand the argument filename , so that it allows you to specify a relative name as the target of the link.
Confirmation is required when creating the link if linkname is in use.
Note that not all systems support symbolic links.