NAME

readlink − read value of a symbolic link

SYNTAX

cc = readlink(path, buf, bufsiz)
int cc;
char *path, *buf;
int bufsiz;

DESCRIPTION

The readlink system call places the contents of the symbolic link path in the buffer buf which has size bufsiz. The contents of the link are not null terminated when returned.

RETURN VALUE

The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer if it succeeds, or a −1 if an error occurs, placing the error code in the global variable errno. 

DIAGNOSTICS

The readlink system call will fail if:

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

[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters.

[ENOENT] The named file does not exist. 

[EACCES] Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix. 

[EINVAL] The named file is not a symbolic link. 

[EFAULT] The buf extends outside the process’s allocated address space. 

[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 

[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. 

[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

lstat(2), symlink(2), stat(2)

System Calls