A symbolic link is a link which points to another file. In Microsoft windows, this is referred to as a shortcut and in Macintosh, an alias. To create a symbolic link:
$ ln -s source_file symbolic_link
$ ln -s readme.txt pointer-to-readme.txtNow if you do:
$ cat readme.txt
$ cat pointer-to-readme.txtBoth commands would print the contents of the same file, readme.txt.
If you delete the symbolic link, the original file would remain intact. However, if you delete or move the original file, the symbolic link would not function properly.
To find out more about symbolic links, read the man pages for the ln command:
$ man ln