1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" 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.\" from: @(#)readlink.2 6.8 (Berkeley) 3/10/91 33.\" $Id: readlink.2,v 1.6 1994/04/22 00:13:44 jtc Exp $ 34.\" 35.Dd March 10, 1991 36.Dt READLINK 2 37.Os BSD 4.2 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm readlink 40.Nd read value of a symbolic link 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Fd #include <unistd.h> 43.Ft int 44.Fn readlink "const char *path" "char *buf" "int bufsiz" 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46.Fn Readlink 47places the contents of the symbolic link 48.Fa path 49in the buffer 50.Fa buf , 51which has size 52.Fa bufsiz . 53.Nm Readlink 54does not append a 55.Dv NUL 56character to 57.Fa buf . 58.Sh RETURN VALUES 59The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer 60if it succeeds, or a -1 if an error occurs, placing the error 61code in the global variable 62.Va errno . 63.Sh ERRORS 64.Fn Readlink 65will fail if: 66.Bl -tag -width Er 67.It Bq Er ENOTDIR 68A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 69.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG 70A component of a pathname exceeded 71.Dv {NAME_MAX} 72characters, or an entire path name exceeded 73.Dv {PATH_MAX} 74characters. 75.It Bq Er ENOENT 76The named file does not exist. 77.It Bq Er EACCES 78Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. 79.It Bq Er ELOOP 80Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 81.It Bq Er EINVAL 82The named file is not a symbolic link. 83.It Bq Er EIO 84An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. 85.It Bq Er EFAULT 86.Fa Buf 87extends outside the process's allocated address space. 88.El 89.Sh SEE ALSO 90.Xr stat 2 , 91.Xr lstat 2 , 92.Xr symlink 2 93.Sh HISTORY 94The 95.Fn readlink 96function call appeared in 97.Bx 4.2 . 98