What is a soft link (symbolic links)?

shoebill

Better know as symbolic links.

Excerpt:

"Symbolic links" ("symlinks" for short), on the other hand, are a special file type (which not all kernels support: System V release 3 (and older) systems lack symlinks) in which the link file actually refers to a different file, by name.  

When most operations (opening,reading, writing, and so on) are passed the symbolic link file, the kernel automatically "dereferences" the link and operates on the target of the link.  But some operations (e.g., removing) work on the link file
itself, rather than on its target.  

The owner and group of a symlink are not significant to file access performed through the link, but do have implications on deleting a symbolic link from a directory with the restricted deletion bit set.  

On the GNU system, the mode of a symlink has no significance and cannot be changed, but on some BSD systems, the mode can be changed and will affect whether the symlink will be traversed in file name resolution.