How do you create a symbolic link to a file?

Creating a symbolic link to a file is accomplished using the ln command with the -s option, which specifically indicates that the link being created should be symbolic rather than hard. The syntax involves specifying the existing file (referred to as 'filename') followed by the desired name of the link (referred to as 'linkname').

When the command is executed, it creates a new entry in the filesystem that refers to the original file, allowing users to access the file through a different name or path. This differentiation is important because symbolic links can point to files that are in different locations, or even to files that do not exist, unlike hard links which can only point to files within the same filesystem and must reference an existing file at the time of creation.

The other options do not correctly utilize the command structure for creating symbolic links. The command link filename linkname does not exist in UNIX/Linux systems for this purpose. Meanwhile, simply using ln filename linkname creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link. The command symlink filename linkname is a function typically found in programming contexts, not in command-line usage.