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Full Discussion: Get the filename linked to symbolic link
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Get the filename linked to symbolic link Post 302915996 by Don Cragun on Friday 5th of September 2014 04:02:26 PM
Old 09-05-2014
Or you could write your own readlink utility. Save the following in readlink.c:
Code:
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
        char    buf[2048];      // buffer for symbolic link
        int     err = 0;        // non-zero if errors found
        int     i;              // loop control
        int     len;            // lenght of cymlink data

        for(i = 1; i <argc; i++)
                if((len = (int)readlink(argv[i], buf, sizeof(buf))) == -1) {
                        perror(argv[i]);
                        err = 1;
                } else  printf("%*.*s\n", len, len, buf);
        return(err);
}

run:
Code:
make readlink

and then to get the contents of a symbolic link stored into a shell variable, use:
Code:
var=$(./readlink symlink)

This will give you an error if you give it the operand is a file that is not a symbolic link, and it will truncate the contents of symliinks that are longer than 2048 bytes, but that won't usually be a problem for what you're trying to do. The real readlink would stat() the file if readlink() failed with EINVAL and then, if the stat() succeeded would just print the filename.
 

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LEARN ABOUT PHP

lstat

LSTAT(3)								 1								  LSTAT(3)

lstat - Gives information about a file or symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

       array lstat (string  $filename)

DESCRIPTION

	Gathers the statistics of the file or symbolic link named by $filename.

PARAMETERS

	      o $filename
		- Path to a file or a symbolic link.

RETURN VALUES

	See  the  manual  page	for stat(3) for information on the structure of the array that lstat(3) returns. This function is identical to the
       stat(3) function except that if the $filename parameter is a symbolic link, the status of the symbolic link is returned, not the status	of
       the file pointed to by the symbolic link.

EXAMPLES

       Example #1

	      Comparison of stat(3) and lstat(3)

	      <?php
	      symlink('uploads.php', 'uploads');

	      // Contrast information for uploads.php and uploads
	      array_diff(stat('uploads'), lstat('uploads'));
	      ?>

	      The above example will output something similar to:

	       Information that differs between the two files.

	      Array
	      (
		  [ino] => 97236376
		  [mode] => 33188
		  [size] => 34
		  [atime] => 1223580003
		  [mtime] => 1223581848
		  [ctime] => 1223581848
		  [blocks] => 8
	      )

ERRORS
/EXCEPTIONS
	Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

NOTES

       Note

	      The results of this function are cached. See clearstatcache(3) for more details.

       Tip

	      As  of  PHP  5.0.0,  this function can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to "Supported Protocols and Wrappers" to determine
	      which wrappers support stat(3) family of functionality.

SEE ALSO

       stat(3).

PHP Documentation Group 														  LSTAT(3)
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