reflinks

Reflinks, short for reference links, are citations embedded in wiki content to support statements. They are inserted inline using a citation syntax and are collected in a bibliography or references list generated by the software. Reflinks are used to verify information, attribute sources, and enable readers to locate the original material. In most wikis, a sentence followed by a reflink will display a superscript marker that links to the corresponding entry in the references section, which may include metadata such as author, title, publication, date, and URL. The system often supports multiple reflinks per statement and named references that can be reused across the article.

Reflink also refers to a file-system feature in Unix-like systems that allows the creation of a copy of a file that shares its data blocks with the original, using copy-on-write semantics. A reflink copy reduces disk usage because blocks are shared until one of the copies is modified, at which point only the changed blocks are stored separately. This capability is implemented in several Linux file systems, including Btrfs and XFS, and is accessible from user space via commands such as cp --reflink. Reflinks are not independent duplicates; modifications to one copy may trigger data isolation for the affected blocks. They are useful for fast backups, efficient duplication, and space-saving cloning, but care must be taken with applications that rely on separate file instances.