readlink()

Place the contents of a symbolic link into a buffer

#include <unistd.h>

int readlink( const char* path, 
              char* buf, 
              size_t bufsiz );

Arguments:

path

The name of the symbolic link.

buf

A pointer to a buffer where the function can store the contents of the symbolic link (i.e. the path linked to).

bufsiz

The size of the buffer.

Library:

libc

Use the -l c option to qcc to link against this library. This library is usually included automatically.

Description:

The readlink() function places the contents of the symbolic link named by path into the buffer pointed to by buf, which has a size of bufsiz. The contents of the returned symbolic link doesn't include a NULL terminator. Its length must be determined from the stat structure returned by lstat() , or by the return value of the readlink() call.

If readlink() is successful, up to bufsiz bytes from the contents of the symbolic link are placed in buf.

Returns:

The number of bytes placed in the buffer, or -1 if an error occurs (errno is set).

Errors:

EACCES

Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.

EINVAL

The named file isn't a symbolic link.

ELOOP

A loop exists in the symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument, and more than SYMLOOP_MAX symbolic links were encountered.

ENAMETOOLONG

A component of the path exceeded NAME_MAX characters, or the entire pathname exceeded PATH_MAX characters.

ENOENT

The named file doesn't exist.

ENOSYS

Links aren't supported by the resource manager associated with path.

ENOTDIR

A component of the path prefix named by path isn't a directory.

Examples:

/*
 * Read the contents of the named symbolic links
 */
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

char buf[PATH_MAX + 1];

int main( int argc, char** argv )
{
  int n;
  int len;
  int ecode = 0;

  for( n = 1; n < argc; ++n ) {
    if(( len = readlink( argv[n], buf, PATH_MAX )) == -1) {
      perror( argv[n] );
      ecode++;
    }
    else {
      buf[len] = '\0';
      printf( "%s -> %s\n", argv[n], buf );
    }
  }

  return( ecode );
}

Classification:

POSIX 1003.1