Create Symbolic Link In Ubuntu Linux

Introduction

Symbolic link is a way to make a reference from a file, this method is used to simplify a linux user to open a file from a very long and specific path, and open it from a short path. 

Example

For example, i have a file that i opened very often that is locate in : "/home/user/Documents/test/super/long/path/location /file/secret.txt". Following is an example for showing the file location :

cd ~/Documents/test/super/long/path/location/file/ && pwd

here is the result:

/home/user/Documents/test/super/long/path/location/file

then check if file "secret.txt" is exist:

ls

here is the result:

user@asus:~/Documents/test/super/long/path/location/file$ ls
secret.txt

By default, the linux terminal will open user directory "/home/user" for the default directory , and i want to open "secret.txt" file from this directory "/home/user". So all i need to do is creating the symbolic link a.k.a Symlink file. to create a new symbolic link you can use "LN" command,  following is the command format to create the symbolic link:

sudo ln -s souce_file target_symlink_file

here is the command to create symlink

sudo ln -s /home/user/Documents/test/super/long/path/location/file/secret.txt /home/user/secret.txt

now lets check it out does the symlink file "secret.txt" exist, first, lets get back to the default directory by typing:

cd ~

and run this command to check files existing:

ls secret.txt

here the result:

user@asus:~$ ls secret.txt
secret.txt

now lets open the file "secret.txt" by typing:

nano secret.txt

and here is the result:

Well, that's it, we have successfully create a symbolink file.