4.3BSD/usr/man/man2/readlink.2

.\" Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\"	@(#)readlink.2	6.4 (Berkeley) 8/26/85
.\"
.TH READLINK 2 "August 26, 1985"
.UC 5
.SH NAME
readlink \- read value of a symbolic link
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.ft B
cc = readlink(path, buf, bufsiz)
int cc;
char *path, *buf;
int bufsiz;
.fi
.ft R
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Readlink
places the contents of the symbolic link
.I name
in the buffer
.I buf,
which has size
.IR bufsiz . 
The contents of the link are not null terminated when returned.
.SH "RETURN VALUE
The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer
if it succeeds, or a \-1 if an error occurs, placing the error
code in the global variable \fIerrno\fP.
.SH "ERRORS
.I Readlink
will fail and the file mode will be unchanged if:
.TP 15
[ENOTDIR]
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.TP 15
[EINVAL]
The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
.TP 15
[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
.TP 15
[ENOENT]
The named file does not exist.
.TP 15
[EACCES]
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
.TP 15
[ELOOP]
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
.TP 15
[EINVAL]
The named file is not a symbolic link.
.TP 15
[EIO]
An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
.TP 15
[EFAULT]
.I Buf
extends outside the process's allocated address space.
.SH SEE ALSO
stat(2), lstat(2), symlink(2)