what does l mean

when we execute the command

Code:

ls -l /bin

we get a list of files with their properties

and in the list we find that instead of - or d we get l as option in the first column (the one which tell if the item is directory of file) for few files like awk,view ,tcptraceroute

what does this l value stand for???

l stands for Symbolic link


A symbolic link is a reference to another file. This special file is stored as a textual representation of the referenced file's path (which means the destination may be a relative path, or may not exist at all).

A symbolic link is marked with an l (lower case L) as the first letter of the mode string, e.g.

lrwxrwxrwx ... termcap -> /usr/share/misc/termcap
lrwxrwxrwx ... S03xinetd -> ../init.d/xinetd

if u have any doubt check out this url
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_file_types

Symbolic reference is just like creating a shortcut to a file or folder. As said above, in unix it is called symbolic link.

To create symbolic link

Code:

$ ln -s <existing path> <new path>

eg

Code:

$ ln -s sample foo

Here foo is a link to sample...