I was wondering why every file has 1 link to itself.
I'll try to be more clear.
By inserting from bash the command " ls -l " you'll end up with a list of files each preceded by different data divided in columns. The number of links to a file is in the third column. Can someone explain me why a file has that information setted to 1 instead of 0?
I get why the directories have two, if you explore one you'll find the " . " and the " . . " subdirectories, the former points at the directory itself, while the latter to the previous directory, but the file can't contain the " . " subdirectory since it's a file, so shouldn't it be 0?
Because there is nothing special about the first hard link (soft links are different, they're really just special files containing the textual target) to a file, it's just a directory entry that refers to the inode behind it.
This is a consequence of the decision to separate data (inode) from references to the data (directory entry).
So don't think of the file being one directory entry, with other files linked to it. Think instead of the data in the file being the thing, with as many directory entries as you need referring to it. When you hard-link directory entry a to an existing b, you're really linking it to the inode behind b, and they are equals in every sense of the word. The data is only ever destroyed when the final hard link to it is disconnected.