From LQWiki

Soft Link

A special kind of directory entry that links to any file, existing or not, anywhere in the file system. These are useful in part because they can cross the boundaries between mount points (filesystems), and can be used by any user for directories (which a hard_link cannot).

See also

• hard_link
• symlink() function that creates these
• ln with the -s option
• lstat(function)