redhat man page for readlink

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

NAME
       readlink - read value of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS
       #include <unistd.h>

       int readlink(const char *path, char *buf, size_t bufsiz);

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

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 errno.

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

       EINVAL bufsiz is not positive.

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

       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 buf extends outside the process's allocated address space.

       ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.

CONFORMING TO
       X/OPEN, 4.4BSD (the readlink function call appeared in 4.2BSD).

SEE ALSO
       stat(2), lstat(2), symlink(2)

Linux 2.0.30							    1997-08-21							       READLINK(2)