1.\" $NetBSD: readlink.2,v 1.15 2002/02/08 01:28:21 ross Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 15.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 16.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 17.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 18.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 19.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 20.\" without specific prior written permission. 21.\" 22.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 23.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 24.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 25.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 26.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 27.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 28.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 29.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 30.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 31.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 32.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 33.\" 34.\" @(#)readlink.2 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 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.Fd #include \*[Lt]unistd.h\*[Gt] 46.Ft int 47.Fn readlink "const char *path" "char *buf" "size_t 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 . 56.Fn readlink 57does not append a 58.Dv NUL 59character to 60.Fa buf . 61.Sh RETURN VALUES 62The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer 63if it succeeds, or a -1 if an error occurs, placing the error 64code in the global variable 65.Va errno . 66.Sh ERRORS 67.Fn readlink 68will fail if: 69.Bl -tag -width Er 70.It Bq Er ENOTDIR 71A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 72.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG 73A component of a pathname exceeded 74.Dv {NAME_MAX} 75characters, or an entire path name exceeded 76.Dv {PATH_MAX} 77characters. 78.It Bq Er ENOENT 79The named file does not exist. 80.It Bq Er EACCES 81Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. 82.It Bq Er ELOOP 83Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 84.It Bq Er EINVAL 85The named file is not a symbolic link. 86.It Bq Er EIO 87An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. 88.It Bq Er EFAULT 89.Fa buf 90extends outside the process's allocated address space. 91.El 92.Sh SEE ALSO 93.Xr lstat 2 , 94.Xr stat 2 , 95.Xr symlink 2 , 96.Xr symlink 7 97.Sh HISTORY 98The 99.Fn readlink 100function call appeared in 101.Bx 4.2 . 102