readlink(2)                                                     readlink(2)




 NAME    [Toc]    [Back]
      readlink() - read the contents of a symbolic link

 SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]
      #include <symlink.h>

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

 DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]
      The readlink() function places the contents of the symbolic link
      referred to by path in the buffer buf which has size bufsiz.  If the
      number of bytes in the symbolic link is less than bufsiz, the contents
      of the remainder of buf are unspecified.

      In systems conforming to AES standards, the returned string will be
      null-terminated if the length of the path name string is less than
      bufsiz.  If the length of the path name string is exactly bufsiz, the
      string will not be null-terminated when returned.  If the length of
      the path name string exceeds bufsiz, the readlink() function returns
      -1 and sets errno to [ERANGE].

    Note    [Toc]    [Back]
      The kernel tunable parameter hpux_aes_override can be queried  to
      determine whether a system conforms to AES standards.

 RETURN VALUE    [Toc]    [Back]
      Upon successful completion, readlink() returns the count of bytes
      placed in the buffer.  Otherwise, it returns a value of -1, leaves the
      buffer unchanged, and sets errno to indicate the error.

 ERRORS    [Toc]    [Back]
      The readlink() function will fail if:

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

           [EACCES]       Read permission is denied for the directory.

           [EFAULT]       buf or path points outside the process's allocated
                          address space.  Reliable detection of this error
                          is implementation-dependent.

           [EINVAL]       The path argument names a file that is not a
                          symbolic link.

           [EIO]          An I/O error occurred while reading from the file
                          system.



 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 1 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003






 readlink(2)                                                     readlink(2)




           [ELOOP]        Too  many symbolic links were encountered in
                          resolving path.

           [ENAMETOOLONG] The length of path exceeds PATH_MAX, or a pathname
                          component is longer than NAME_MAX.  In systems
                          conforming to AES standards, this error will be
                          returned when the path exceeds the PATH_MAX bytes
                          or a pathname component exceeds the NAME_MAX bytes
                          while _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is in effect.

           [ENAMETOOLONG] Pathname resolution of a symbolic link produced an
                          intermediate result whose length exceeds PATH_MAX.

           [ENOENT]       A component of path does not name an existing file
                          or path is an empty string.

           [ENOTDIR]      A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

           [ERANGE]       The length of the path name string read from the
                          symbolic link exceeds bufsiz.

 AUTHOR    [Toc]    [Back]
      readlink() was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.

 SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]
      stat(2), symlink(2), symlink(4), <unistd.h>.

 STANDARDS CONFORMANCE    [Toc]    [Back]
      readlink() : AES, SVID3


 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 2 -   HP-UX 11i Version 2: August 2003