Possible Duplicate:What is the number between file permission and owner in ls -l command output? I've been using Linux for years now and I'm embarrassed to say that until now I didn't notice that I have no idea what the second column of ls -l means:-r--r--r-- 1 roic develop1 roic  685 2012-10-11 14:15 API.h           ^In this example - 1. What does it stand for?
What's the second column of ls -l say?
linux;ls
It is the no. of the links that the file is having...links is the nothing but different names of the same fileLinks are of two type hard and soft linksuse the following code:    ln file1 file2 #ln command creates file2 as a link of file 1    ls -l file1This will show 2 in place of 1 bcoz file1 has two namesNow file1 and file2Now same file can be used by two different namesArun