xref: /original-bsd/lib/libc/sys/link.2 (revision 05bf53f3)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)link.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 06/04/93
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt LINK 2
10.Os BSD 4
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm link
13.Nd make a hard file link
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Fd #include <unistd.h>
16.Ft int
17.Fn link "const char *name1" "const char *name2"
18.Sh DESCRIPTION
19The
20.Fn link
21function call
22atomically creates the specified directory entry (hard link)
23.Fa name2
24with the attributes of the underlying object pointed at by
25.Fa name1
26If the link is successful: the link count of the underlying object
27is incremented;
28.Fa name1
29and
30.Fa name2
31share equal access and rights
32to the
33underlying object.
34.Pp
35If
36.Fa name1
37is removed, the file
38.Fa name2
39is not deleted and the link count of the
40underlying object is
41decremented.
42.Pp
43.Fa Name1
44must exist for the hard link to
45succeed and
46both
47.Fa name1
48and
49.Fa name2
50must be in the same file system.
51Unless the caller is the super-user,
52.Fa name1
53may not be a directory.
54.Sh RETURN VALUES
55Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise,
56a value of -1 is returned and
57.Va errno
58is set to indicate the error.
59.Sh ERRORS
60.Fn Link
61will fail and no link will be created if:
62are true:
63.Bl -tag -width Ar
64.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
65A component of either path prefix is not a directory.
66.It Bq Er EINVAL
67Either pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
68.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
69A component of either pathname exceeded 255 characters,
70or entire length of either path name exceeded 1023 characters.
71.It Bq Er ENOENT
72A component of either path prefix does not exist.
73.It Bq Er EACCES
74A component of either path prefix denies search permission.
75.It Bq Er EACCES
76The requested link requires writing in a directory with a mode
77that denies write permission.
78.It Bq Er ELOOP
79Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating one of the pathnames.
80.It Bq Er ENOENT
81The file named by
82.Fa name1
83does not exist.
84.It Bq Er EEXIST
85The link named by
86.Fa name2
87does exist.
88.It Bq Er EPERM
89The file named by
90.Fa name1
91is a directory and the effective
92user ID is not super-user.
93.It Bq Er EXDEV
94The link named by
95.Fa name2
96and the file named by
97.Fa name1
98are on different file systems.
99.It Bq Er ENOSPC
100The directory in which the entry for the new link is being placed
101cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file
102system containing the directory.
103.It Bq Er EDQUOT
104The directory in which the entry for the new link
105is being placed cannot be extended because the
106user's quota of disk blocks on the file system
107containing the directory has been exhausted.
108.It Bq Er EIO
109An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
110the file system to make the directory entry.
111.It Bq Er EROFS
112The requested link requires writing in a directory on a read-only file
113system.
114.It Bq Er EFAULT
115One of the pathnames specified
116is outside the process's allocated address space.
117.El
118.Sh SEE ALSO
119.Xr symlink 2 ,
120.Xr unlink 2
121.Sh STANDARDS
122.Fn Link
123is expected to
124conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988
125.Pq Dq Tn POSIX .
126