READLINK(2)						     Linux Programmer's Manual						       READLINK(2)

NAME

       readlink, readlinkat - read value of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       ssize_t readlink(const char *pathname, char *buf, size_t bufsiz);

       #include <fcntl.h>	    /* Definition of AT_* constants */
       #include <unistd.h>

       ssize_t readlinkat(int dirfd, const char *pathname,
			  char *buf, size_t bufsiz);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       readlink():
	   _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
	       || /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE

       readlinkat():
	   Since glibc 2.10:
	       _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
	   Before glibc 2.10:
	       _ATFILE_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       readlink()  places  the contents of the symbolic link pathname in the buffer buf, which has size bufsiz.  readlink() does not append a null
       byte to buf.  It will (silently) truncate the contents (to a length of bufsiz characters), in case the buffer is too small to hold  all	of
       the contents.

   readlinkat()
       The readlinkat() system call operates in exactly the same way as readlink(), except for the differences described here.

       If  the	pathname  given in pathname is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor dirfd
       (rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling process, as is done by readlink() for a relative pathname).

       If pathname is relative and dirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then pathname is interpreted relative to the current working directory	of
       the calling process (like readlink()).

       If pathname is absolute, then dirfd is ignored.

       Since  Linux  2.6.39,  pathname	can  be  an empty string, in which case the call operates on the symbolic link referred to by dirfd (which
       should have been obtained using open(2) with the O_PATH and O_NOFOLLOW flags).

       See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for readlinkat().

RETURN VALUE

       On success, these calls return the number of bytes placed in buf.   (If	the  returned  value  equals  bufsiz,  then  truncation  may  have
       occurred.)  On error, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.  (See also path_resolution(7).)

       EFAULT buf extends outside the process's allocated address space.

       EINVAL bufsiz is not positive.

       EINVAL The named file (i.e., the final filename component of pathname) is not a symbolic link.

       EIO    An I/O error occurred while reading from the filesystem.

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

       ENAMETOOLONG
	      A pathname, or a component of a pathname, was too long.

       ENOENT The named file does not exist.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

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

       The following additional errors can occur for readlinkat():

       EBADF  dirfd is not a valid file descriptor.

       ENOTDIR
	      pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory.

VERSIONS

       readlinkat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was added to glibc in version 2.4.

CONFORMING TO

       readlink(): 4.4BSD (readlink() first appeared in 4.2BSD), POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.

       readlinkat(): POSIX.1-2008.

NOTES

       In  versions  of  glibc	up  to	and  including glibc 2.4, the return type of readlink() was declared as int.  Nowadays, the return type is
       declared as ssize_t, as (newly) required in POSIX.1-2001.

       Using a statically sized buffer might not provide enough room for the symbolic link contents.  The required size  for  the  buffer  can	be
       obtained  from  the  stat.st_size value returned by a call to lstat(2) on the link.  However, the number of bytes written by readlink() and
       readlinkat() should be checked to make sure that the size of the symbolic link did not increase between the calls.  Dynamically	allocating
       the  buffer  for  readlink()  and readlinkat() also addresses a common portability problem when using PATH_MAX for the buffer size, as this
       constant is not guaranteed to be defined per POSIX if the system does not have such limit.

   Glibc notes
       On older kernels where readlinkat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of readlink().   When  pathname  is  a
       relative pathname, glibc constructs a pathname based on the symbolic link in /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd argument.

EXAMPLE

       The  following  program	allocates the buffer needed by readlink() dynamically from the information provided by lstat(2), falling back to a
       buffer of size PATH_MAX in cases where lstat(2) reports a size of zero.

       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/stat.h>
       #include <limits.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
	   struct stat sb;
	   char *buf;
	   ssize_t nbytes, bufsiz;

	   if (argc != 2) {
	       fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <pathname>
", argv[0]);
	       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	   }

	   if (lstat(argv[1], &sb) == -1) {
	       perror("lstat");
	       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	   }

	   /* Add one to the link size, so that we can determine whether
	      the buffer returned by readlink() was truncated. */

	   bufsiz = sb.st_size + 1;

	   /* Some magic symlinks under (for example) /proc and /sys
	      report 'st_size' as zero. In that case, take PATH_MAX as
	      a "good enough" estimate. */

	   if (sb.st_size == 0)
	       bufsiz = PATH_MAX;

	   buf = malloc(bufsiz);
	   if (buf == NULL) {
	       perror("malloc");
	       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	   }

	   nbytes = readlink(argv[1], buf, bufsiz);
	   if (nbytes == -1) {
	       perror("readlink");
	       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
	   }

	   printf("'%s' points to '%.*s'
", argv[1], (int) nbytes, buf);

	   /* If the return value was equal to the buffer size, then the
	      the link target was larger than expected (perhaps because the
	      target was changed between the call to lstat() and the call to
	      readlink()). Warn the user that the returned target may have
	      been truncated. */

	   if (nbytes == bufsiz)
	       printf("(Returned buffer may have been truncated)
");

	   free(buf);
	   exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO

       readlink(1), lstat(2), stat(2), symlink(2), realpath(3), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)

COLOPHON

       This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and  the
       latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux								    2017-09-15							       READLINK(2)