Hard and symbolic links (soft link)

Symbolic link (soft link) : a special type of file that contains links to other files or a directory in the form of an absolute or relative path reference. Only a symbolic link file contains a text string, which is interpreted as a system operating point to another file or directory path (see FIGS. 1 and 2).

Hard links : one or more file name of a file (see FIG. 3, FIG. 4).

Figure 1. symbolic link

Figure 2. symbolic link - Chinese

Figure 3. hard link

Figure 4. hard links - translation

Reference: Wikipedia