PHP Tutorial - PHP symlink() Function

Definition

PHP symlink() Function creates a symbolic link.

Syntax

PHP symlink() Function has the following syntax.

symlink(target,link)

Parameter

Parameter	Is Required	Description
target	Required.	Target of the link.
link	Required.	The link name.

Return

This function returns TRUE on success, or FALSE on failure.

Note

The symlink() function creates a symbolic link from the existing target with the specified name link. This function does not work on Windows platforms.

Unix links come in two types:

hard links, which are files, and
symlinks also known as soft links, which are pointers to other files.

Delete a hard link, delete the file unless there are other hard links pointing to the same file, whereas if you delete a symlink, the original file remains untouched.

We can create hard links and symlinks using the link() and symlink() functions, both of which take a target and a link name and return true if they were successful or false otherwise.

Example

Creates a symbolic link.


<?PHP//from   ww w  . j  a v a2  s .  co m
      $result = link("/home/user1/myfile.txt", "/home/user2/myfile.txt");
      if (!$result) {
             echo "Hard link could not be created!\n";
      } else {
             $result = symlink("/home/user1/myfile.txt", "/home/user2/myfile.txt");
             if (!$result) {
                 echo "Symlink could not be created either!\n";
             }
      }
?>