Usage
On POSIX-compliant and partially POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as all Unix-like systems, additional hard links to existing files are created with the link system call, or the ln and link command-line utilities. The stat command can reveal how many hard links point to a given file. The link count is also included in the output of ls -l.
On Microsoft Windows, hard links can be created using the mklink /H command on Windows NT 6.0 and later systems (such as Windows Vista), and in earlier systems (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003) using fsutil.exe hardlink create. The Windows API from Windows 2000 onwards includes a CreateHardLink call to create hard links, DeleteFile is used to remove them, and GetFileInformationByHandle can be used to determine the number of hard links associated with a file. Hard links require an NTFS partition. Unix-like emulation or compatibility software running on Windows, such as Cygwin and Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications, allow the use of POSIX interfaces under Windows.
The process of unlinking dissociates a name from the data on the volume without destroying the associated data. The data are still accessible as long as at least one link that points to it still exists. When the last link is removed, the space is considered free. A process ambiguously called undeleting allows the recreation of links to data that are no longer associated with a name. However, this process is not available on all systems and is often not reliable.
Read more about this topic: Hard Link
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