Why are some Icons linked between them?

Question

I have noticed that some Icons point to another Icon in the Same icon theme, they have a little arrow and upon clicking Properties one can see that.

Why is that? What's the reason behind it? and if i were to make an Icon How can i link Icon A to Icon B?.

Answer 1

In general you create links when you want to have the same content reachable under different names.

Since some applications are looking for add and other for list-add, it is easier to provide both icons, then to change the software to only look for one of the names.

Another reason is that designers might want to keep the set of icons small, and thus provide related topics with the same icons.

Links in general are generated with the ln command.

Example: ln -s target.svg linkname.svg creates a symbolik link between the two files.

You can read the documentation of ln by running man ln or a shorter version ln --help.