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Symbolic Links
Symbolic links were created to overcome the limitations of hard links. Symbolic links work by creating a special type of file that contains a text pointer to the referenced file or directory. In this regard, they operate in much the same way as a Windows shortcut though of course, they predate the Windows feature by many years ;-)
A file pointed to by a symbolic link, and the symbolic link itself are largely indistinguish- able from one another. For example, if you write something to the symbolic link, the ref- erenced file is written to. However when you delete a symbolic link, only the link is deleted, not the file itself. If the file is deleted before the symbolic link, the link will con - tinue to exist, but will point to nothing. In this case, the link is said to be broken. In many implementations, the ls command will display broken links in a distinguishing color, such as red, to reveal their presence.
The concept of links can seem very confusing, but hang in there. We're going to try all this stuff and it will, hopefully, become clear.