1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. 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 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd June 4, 1993 36.Dt READLINK 2 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm readlink 40.Nd read value of a symbolic link 41.Sh LIBRARY 42.Lb libc 43.Sh SYNOPSIS 44.Fd #include <unistd.h> 45.Ft int 46.Fn readlink "const char *path" "char *buf" "int bufsiz" 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48.Fn Readlink 49places the contents of the symbolic link 50.Fa path 51in the buffer 52.Fa buf , 53which has size 54.Fa bufsiz . 55The 56.Fn readlink 57function does 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 255 characters, 74or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. 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 lstat 2 , 91.Xr stat 2 , 92.Xr symlink 2 , 93.Xr symlink 7 94.Sh HISTORY 95The 96.Fn readlink 97function call appeared in 98.Bx 4.2 . 99