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.\" @(#)readlink.2 6.8 (Berkeley) 3/10/91 33.\" 34.Dd March 10, 1991 35.Dt READLINK 2 36.Os BSD 4.2 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm readlink 39.Nd read value of a symbolic link 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41.Fd #include <unistd.h> 42.Ft int 43.Fn readlink "const char *path" "char *buf" "int bufsiz" 44.Sh DESCRIPTION 45.Fn Readlink 46places the contents of the symbolic link 47.Fa path 48in the buffer 49.Fa buf , 50which has size 51.Fa bufsiz . 52.Nm Readlink 53does not append a 54.Dv NUL 55character to 56.Fa buf . 57.Sh RETURN VALUES 58The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer 59if it succeeds, or a -1 if an error occurs, placing the error 60code in the global variable 61.Va errno . 62.Sh ERRORS 63.Fn Readlink 64will fail if: 65.Bl -tag -width ENAMETOOLONG 66.It Bq Er ENOTDIR 67A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 68.It Bq Er EINVAL 69The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. 70.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG 71A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, 72or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. 73.It Bq Er ENOENT 74The named file does not exist. 75.It Bq Er EACCES 76Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. 77.It Bq Er ELOOP 78Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 79.It Bq Er EINVAL 80The named file is not a symbolic link. 81.It Bq Er EIO 82An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system. 83.It Bq Er EFAULT 84.Fa Buf 85extends outside the process's allocated address space. 86.El 87.Sh SEE ALSO 88.Xr stat 2 , 89.Xr lstat 2 , 90.Xr symlink 2 91.Sh HISTORY 92The 93.Nm 94function call appeared in 95.Bx 4.2 . 96