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Manual page for readlink(2)

readlink - read the contents of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int readlink(const char *path, char *buf, size_t bufsiz);

DESCRIPTION

The readlink() function places the contents of the symbolic link referred to by path in the buffer buf which has size bufsiz. If the number of bytes in the symbolic link is less than bufsiz, the contents of the remainder of buf are unspecified.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, readlink() returns the count of bytes placed in the buffer. Otherwise, it returns -1, leaves the buffer unchanged, and sets errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The readlink() function will fail if:

EACCES: Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix of path.
EFAULT: path or buf points to an illegal address.
EINVAL: The path argument names a file that is not a symbolic link.
EIO: An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
ENOENT: A component of path does not name an existing file or path is an empty string.
ELOOP: Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.
ENAMETOOLONG: The length of path exceeds PATH_MAX, or a pathname component is longer than NAME_MAX while {_POSIX_NO_TRUNC} is in effect.
ENOTDIR: A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
ENOSYS: The file system does not support symbolic links.

The readlink() function may fail if:

EACCES: Read permission is denied for the directory.
ENAMETOOLONG: Path name resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate result whose length exceeds PATH_MAX.

USAGE