readlinkat(2) [freebsd man page]
READLINK(2) BSD System Calls Manual READLINK(2) NAME
readlink, readlinkat -- read value of a symbolic link LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> ssize_t readlink(const char *restrict path, char *restrict buf, size_t bufsiz); ssize_t readlinkat(int fd, const char *restrict path, char *restrict buf, size_t bufsize); DESCRIPTION
The readlink() system call places the contents of the symbolic link path in the buffer buf, which has size bufsiz. The readlink() system call does not append a NUL character to buf. The readlinkat() system call is equivalent to readlink() except in the case where path specifies a relative path. In this case the symbolic link whose content is read relative to the directory associated with the file descriptor fd instead of the current working directory. If readlinkat() is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in the fd parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical to a call to readlink(). RETURN VALUES
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. ERRORS
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 path name exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EINVAL] The named file is not a symbolic link. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. [EFAULT] The buf argument extends outside the process's allocated address space. In addition to the errors returned by the readlink(), the readlinkat() may fail if: [EBADF] The path argument does not specify an absolute path and the fd argument is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open for searching. [ENOTDIR] The path argument is not an absolute path and fd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a file descriptor associated with a directory. SEE ALSO
lstat(2), stat(2), symlink(2), symlink(7) STANDARDS
The readlinkat() system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification. HISTORY
The readlink() system call appeared in 4.2BSD. The readlinkat() system call appeared in FreeBSD 8.0. BSD
April 10, 2008 BSD
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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)