public_html vs. www

[1018 logoz]

so really what's the differents?
I see people say use public_HTML but I always ftp to www.
I understand they are copies of each other but what is the real diffrents?

[AfroJoJo]

www is a mirror of public_html. www is used for the subdomain www(example: www.domain.com). This is done on most servers to support users going to the www subdomain. Use public_html for your FTP uploads.

[charlesgan]

www is used for the subdomain www(example: www.domain.com).

is this mean the www is the superset.
seem like it got 'extra' support for subdomains.

[jfernand]

what do you mean by the subdomain www?

the www folder is an alias for the public_html folder. I'm not sure if that folder is needed for some operational reason but you can ftp to either one since they're the same

[felgall]

The folder is public_html
www is just a redirect into the public_html folder.

To look at it another way - take a bucket and write public_html on the side. Throw all files that are to go into public_html into the bucket with that label.
Now take a second label and write on it "all entries labelled 'www' should go in the 'public_html' bucket". Now where do the files that are to go in www end up?

[Basil]

In windows www would be considered a shortcut to public_html. It's a symbolic link.
I don't really understand the point either, since they're both in the same directory anyways..

[cferd]

The symbolic link "www" is really not needed for anything unless you did something stupid like me. I set up a fetchmail "Pipe" mechanism with it pointing to "www/mail/..." instead of "public_html/mail/..."

BH then removed catchall and any way of editing it through CPanel, so until I learn how to use SSH safely and effectively, I'm stuck with the "www" link whether I want to be or not. Oh well. Not really a big deal though.