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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | VERSIONS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
READLINK(2) Linux Programmer's Manual READLINK(2)
readlink, readlinkat - read value of a symbolic link
#include <unistd.h>
ssize_t readlink(const char *pathname, char *buf, size_t bufsiz);
#include <fcntl.h> /* Definition of AT_* constants */
#include <unistd.h>
ssize_t readlinkat(int dirfd, const char *pathname,
char *buf, size_t bufsiz);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
readlink():
_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
|| /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE
readlinkat():
Since glibc 2.10:
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
Before glibc 2.10:
_ATFILE_SOURCE
readlink() places the contents of the symbolic link pathname in the
buffer buf, which has size bufsiz. readlink() does not append a null
byte to buf. It will (silently) truncate the contents (to a length
of bufsiz characters), in case the buffer is too small to hold all of
the contents.
readlinkat()
The readlinkat() system call operates in exactly the same way as
readlink(), except for the differences described here.
If the pathname given in pathname is relative, then it is interpreted
relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor dirfd
(rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling
process, as is done by readlink() for a relative pathname).
If pathname is relative and dirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then
pathname is interpreted relative to the current working directory of
the calling process (like readlink()).
If pathname is absolute, then dirfd is ignored.
Since Linux 2.6.39, pathname can be an empty string, in which case
the call operates on the symbolic link referred to by dirfd (which
should have been obtained using open(2) with the O_PATH and
O_NOFOLLOW flags).
See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for readlinkat().
On success, these calls return the number of bytes placed in buf.
(If the returned value equals bufsiz, then truncation may have
occurred.) On error, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the
error.
EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path
prefix. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EFAULT buf extends outside the process's allocated address space.
EINVAL bufsiz is not positive.
EINVAL The named file (i.e., the final filename component of
pathname) is not a symbolic link.
EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from the filesystem.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the
pathname.
ENAMETOOLONG
A pathname, or a component of a pathname, was too long.
ENOENT The named file does not exist.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
The following additional errors can occur for readlinkat():
EBADF dirfd is not a valid file descriptor.
ENOTDIR
pathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring
to a file other than a directory.
readlinkat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was
added to glibc in version 2.4.
readlink(): 4.4BSD (readlink() first appeared in 4.2BSD),
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
readlinkat(): POSIX.1-2008.
In versions of glibc up to and including glibc 2.4, the return type
of readlink() was declared as int. Nowadays, the return type is
declared as ssize_t, as (newly) required in POSIX.1-2001.
Using a statically sized buffer might not provide enough room for the
symbolic link contents. The required size for the buffer can be
obtained from the stat.st_size value returned by a call to lstat(2)
on the link. However, the number of bytes written by readlink() and
readlinkat() should be checked to make sure that the size of the
symbolic link did not increase between the calls. Dynamically
allocating the buffer for readlink() and readlinkat() also addresses
a common portability problem when using PATH_MAX for the buffer size,
as this constant is not guaranteed to be defined per POSIX if the
system does not have such limit.
Glibc notes
On older kernels where readlinkat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper
function falls back to the use of readlink(). When pathname is a
relative pathname, glibc constructs a pathname based on the symbolic
link in /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd argument.
The following program allocates the buffer needed by readlink()
dynamically from the information provided by lstat(2), falling back
to a buffer of size PATH_MAX in cases where lstat(2) reports a size
of zero.
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct stat sb;
char *linkname;
ssize_t r, bufsiz;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <pathname>\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if (lstat(argv[1], &sb) == -1) {
perror("lstat");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
bufsiz = sb.st_size + 1;
/* Some magic symlinks under (for example) /proc and /sys
report 'st_size' as zero. In that case, take PATH_MAX as
a "good enough" estimate */
if (sb.st_size == 0)
bufsiz = PATH_MAX;
printf("%zd\n", bufsiz);
linkname = malloc(bufsiz);
if (linkname == NULL) {
perror("malloc");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
r = readlink(argv[1], linkname, bufsiz);
if (r == -1) {
perror("readlink");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
linkname[r] = '\0';
printf("'%s' points to '%s'\n", argv[1], linkname);
if (r == bufsiz)
printf("(Returned buffer may have been truncated)\n");
free(linkname);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
readlink(1), lstat(2), stat(2), symlink(2), realpath(3),
path_resolution(7), symlink(7)
This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2016-10-08 READLINK(2)
Pages that refer to this page: open(2), open_by_handle_at(2), ptrace(2), read(2), stat(2), statx(2), symlink(2), syscalls(2), canonicalize_file_name(3), handle(3), realpath(3), proc(5), namespaces(7), path_resolution(7), pid_namespaces(7), signal-safety(7), symlink(7), lsof(8), umount(8)