What is the difference between a soft link and a hard link in Unix?

In Unix, a soft link (symbolic link) is a pointer to a file or directory that can span across different file systems and even point to non-existent targets. Soft links are similar to shortcuts in Windows and are resolved at runtime. On the other hand, a hard link is a directory entry that points to the physical location of a file on the disk. Hard links cannot span across file systems and cannot link to directories.

One key difference between soft links and hard links is that deleting the original file does not affect a hard link, as it still points to the physical location of the file. However, deleting the original file will render a soft link broken or dangling, as it only points to the file by its path.