LINK(1) General Commands Manual LINK(1)

link — call link function


link file1 file2

The link utility shall perform the function call:

link(file1, file2);

A user may need appropriate privileges to invoke the link utility.

None.

The following operands shall be supported:

file1
The pathname of an existing file.
file2
The pathname of the new directory entry to be created.

Not used.

Not used.

The following environment variables shall affect the execution of link:

Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See XBD for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)
If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.
Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).

Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
Determine the location of messages objects and message catalogs.

Default.

None.

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

None.

None.

The following exit values shall be returned:

Successful completion.
An error occurred.

Default.

None.

None.

None.

If this utility is directed to create a new directory entry that contains any bytes that have the encoded value of a <newline> character, implementations are encouraged to treat this as an error. A future version of this standard may require implementations to treat this as an error.

ln(1), unlink(1)

XBD V1_chap08(7)

XSH link(3)

First released in Issue 5.

Austin Group Defect 251 is applied, encouraging implementations to disallow the creation of filenames containing any bytes that have the encoded value of a <newline> character.

Austin Group Defect 1122 is applied, changing the description of NLSPATH .

June 14, 2024 posix.fail