Help clarify the '-l' option of ls(1).

[RW]

On Wednesday 12 April 2006 16:47, David Robillard wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'd like to have an explication about the '-l' (minus L) option of the
> ls(1) command.

>...

> Does anyone know any details about this 'number of links' ???

It's what it says on the tin; it's the number of links to the file.

You get one link from the directory you are looking at, one from each hard 
link; and for a directory, one from the ".." link in each immediate 
sub-directory.