NAME

link − link to a file

SYNTAX

link(name1, name2)
char *name1, *name2;

DESCRIPTION

A hard link to name1 is created; the link has the name name2. The name1 must exist. 

With hard links, both name1 and name2 must be in the same file system.  Unless the caller is the super-user, name1 must not be a directory.  Both the old and the new link share equal access and rights to the underlying object.

RETURN VALUE

Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise, a value of −1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. 

DIAGNOSTICS

The link system call will fail and no link will be created if one or more of the following are true:

[ENOTDIR] A component of either path prefix is not a directory. 

[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters, or entire length of either pathname exceeded 1023 characters.

[ENOENT] A component of either path prefix does not exist. 

[ENOENT] The file named by name1 does not exist. 

[EACCES] A component of either path prefix denies search permission. 

[EACCES] The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode that denies write permission. 

[EEXIST] The link named by name2 does exist. 

[EPERM] The file named by name1 is a directory and the effective user ID is not super-user. 

[EXDEV] The link named by name2 and the file named by name1 are on different file systems. 

[EROFS] The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file system. 

[EFAULT] One of the pathnames specified is outside the process’s allocated address space. 

[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating one of the pathnames. 

[ENOSPC] The directory in which the entry for the new link is being placed cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing the directory. 

[EDQUOT] The directory in which the entry for the new link is being placed cannot be extended because the user’s quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted. 

[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system to make the directory entry. 

[ESTALE] The file handle given in the argument is invalid.  The file referred to by that file handle no longer exists or has been revoked. 

[ETIMEDOUT] A "connect" request or remote file operation failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time which is dependent on the communications protocol. 

SEE ALSO

symlink(2), unlink(2)

System Calls