1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)readlink.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 33.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/readlink.2,v 1.7.2.4 2001/12/14 18:34:01 ru Exp $ 34.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/sys/readlink.2,v 1.2 2003/06/17 04:26:47 dillon Exp $ 35.\" 36.Dd June 4, 1993 37.Dt READLINK 2 38.Os 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm readlink 41.Nd read value of a symbolic link 42.Sh LIBRARY 43.Lb libc 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.In unistd.h 46.Ft int 47.Fn readlink "const char *path" "char *buf" "int bufsiz" 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49.Fn Readlink 50places the contents of the symbolic link 51.Fa path 52in the buffer 53.Fa buf , 54which has size 55.Fa bufsiz . 56The 57.Fn readlink 58function does not append a 59.Dv NUL 60character to 61.Fa buf . 62.Sh RETURN VALUES 63The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer 64if it succeeds, or a -1 if an error occurs, placing the error 65code in the global variable 66.Va errno . 67.Sh ERRORS 68.Fn Readlink 69will fail if: 70.Bl -tag -width Er 71.It Bq Er ENOTDIR 72A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 73.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG 74A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, 75or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. 76.It Bq Er ENOENT 77The named file does not exist. 78.It Bq Er EACCES 79Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. 80.It Bq Er ELOOP 81Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 82.It Bq Er EINVAL 83The named file is not a symbolic link. 84.It Bq Er EIO 85An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. 86.It Bq Er EFAULT 87.Fa Buf 88extends outside the process's allocated address space. 89.El 90.Sh SEE ALSO 91.Xr lstat 2 , 92.Xr stat 2 , 93.Xr symlink 2 , 94.Xr symlink 7 95.Sh HISTORY 96The 97.Fn readlink 98function call appeared in 99.Bx 4.2 . 100