Question: I was reading php functions and I came across [symlink](http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.symlink.php) but I really couldnt grab it specially its usage in real world application developement. Can anybody please explain me with real world example?

Thanks

Answer: 
Let's assume you have a `src` folder in your `$HOME` directory where your sources are stored. When you open a new shell, you usually enter your `$HOME` directory when the shell was started. It might be a common step that whenever you open up a new shell, you want to enter the directory `~/src/very_long_project_name` afterwards.

This is where symlinks come into play: you could create a symlink in your `$HOME` directory (for example called `vlpn` that directly points to `~/src/very_long_project_name`.

When you open your console next time, you could simply type `cd vlpn` instead of `cd src/very_long_project_name`. That's it. Nothing PHP specific. Like [giraff](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5063738/symlink-real-world-example/5063795#5063795) and [gnur](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5063738/symlink-real-world-example/5063772#5063772) already said.
Symlinks are something that is used on the host OS, not so much by PHP itself.  

It creates a shortcut to a file. It can be useful to request a much used file with a long path, by creating a symlink in the `public_html` folder to the long path you can include it without using the full path. 

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link>

//edit:  

This is better then just copying the file because you actually use the original file, so if the original changes the symlink will always point to the new file, so it is not a copy!