Is a symbolic link a pointer? (or v. versa)

Question

I just looked up this question on google almost certain that it would actually link to the wikipedia page for "Pointer". But it didn't. In fact, no cross-reference of ("symlink" and "pointer") OR ("symbolic link" and "pointer") matches much of anything on a google search.

My understanding of the two concepts is good, I think. A pointer is a reference to an object's memory, or something like that, and a symbolic link is a reference to a file. Is there any relationship between these two concepts?

Sorry, chemistry/business background, ruby developer for a little over 2 years, always trying to grow my knowledge

Answer 1

The term "pointer" is generally use for in-memory accesses in languages like C, while "symbolic link" is generally used by file systems.

Yes, the concepts are related ^(a) in that something points to something else but that's about it. Otherwise, you could potentially include thing like footnotes, tables of contents entries, phones with call forwarding set up, delegates at work and a host of other things.

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^(a) Even to the point where you can have invalid symlink-pointers if you remove the target file (i.e., "free" the pointer). I'm just not certain what a NULL symlink pointer would look like :-)

Answer 2

Filesystem symbolic links and pointers in programming share these properties:

• They point to something.

• They are reseatable (can be mode to point elsewhere).

• They can become stale when the referent is destroyed or moved.

But these properties are shared by so much else.

Only in a very very abstract sense, the sense of having the properties above, can a symbolic link be said to be a pointer.