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  • ln -s <path> says to create a symbolic link link (symlink) to the specified file (or directory) in the current directory
    • always use the -s option to avoid creating a hard link, which behaves quite differently
  • the default link name corresponds to the last name component in <path>
    • you can name the link file differently by supplying an optional link_file_name.
  • it is best to change into (cd) the directory where you want the link before executing ln -s
  • a symbolic link can be deleted without affecting the linked-to file
  • the -f (force) option says to overwrite any existing symbolic link with the same name

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  • find returns a list of matching file paths on its standard output
  • ln wants its files listed as arguments, not on standard input
    • so the paths are piped to the standard input of xargs
  • xargs takes the data on itsĀ standard input and calls the specified function (here ln -sf -t .) with that data as the function's argument list.

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