Removing the original file creates "broken links". The symlink file only contains the path of original file used while creating the link.
In the following example, the size of symlink is only 8 bytes. 
$  cat > orig.txt
This is original file
$  ln -s orig.txt lnk
$  ls -ltr orig* lnk*
-rw-r--r--   1 vaibhav   grp           22 Jun 17 22:31 orig.txt
lrwxrwxrwx   1 vaibhav   grp            8 Jun 17 22:32 lnk -> orig.txt
$  cat lnk
This is original file
$  rm orig.txt
$  ls -ltr orig* lnk*
orig*: No such file or directory
lrwxrwxrwx   1 vaibhav   grp            8 Jun 17 22:32 lnk -> orig.txt
$  cat lnk
cat: cannot open lnk
$

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In reply to Re: Problem with symlink by cheekuperl
in thread Problem with symlink by Eldan Aranye

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