'\" te
.\" Copyright 1989 AT&T.  Copyright (c) 2002, Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.  Portions Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited.  All Rights Reserved.
.\" Sun Microsystems, Inc. gratefully acknowledges The Open Group for permission to reproduce portions of its copyrighted documentation. Original documentation from The Open Group can be obtained online at 
.\" http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/.
.\" The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their documentation. In the following statement, the phrase "this text" refers to portions of the system documentation. Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in the Sun OS Reference Manual, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.
.\"  This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.
.\" The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").  You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
.\" You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
.\" When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE.  If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
.TH readlink 2 "1 Dec 2003" "SunOS 5.11" "System Calls"
.SH NAME
readlink \- read the contents of a symbolic link
.SH SYNOPSIS
.LP
.nf
#include <unistd.h>

\fBssize_t\fR \fBreadlink\fR(\fBconst char *restrict\fR \fIpath\fR,
     \fBchar *restrict\fR \fIbuf\fR, \fBsize_t\fR \fIbufsiz\fR);
.fi

.SH DESCRIPTION
.sp
.LP
The \fBreadlink()\fR function places the contents of the symbolic link referred
to by \fIpath\fR in the buffer \fIbuf\fR which has size \fIbufsiz\fR.  If the
number of bytes in the symbolic link is less than \fIbufsiz\fR, the contents of
the remainder of \fIbuf\fR are left unchanged. If the \fIbuf\fR argument is not
large enough to contain the link content, the first \fIbufsize\fR bytes are
placed in \fIbuf\fR.
.SH RETURN VALUES
.sp
.LP
Upon successful completion, \fBreadlink()\fR returns the count of bytes placed
in the buffer.  Otherwise, it returns  \fB\(mi1\fR, leaves the buffer
unchanged, and sets \fBerrno\fR to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
.sp
.LP
The \fBreadlink()\fR function will fail if:
.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBEACCES\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix of \fIpath\fR.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBEFAULT\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
\fIpath\fR or \fIbuf\fR points to an illegal address.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBEINVAL\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
The \fIpath\fR argument names a file that is not a symbolic link.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBEIO\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBENOENT\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
A component of \fIpath\fR does not name an existing file or \fIpath\fR is an
empty string.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBELOOP\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the \fIpath\fR
argument.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBENAMETOOLONG\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
The length of \fIpath\fR exceeds {\fBPATH_MAX\fR}, or a pathname component is
longer than {\fBNAME_MAX\fR} while \fB_POSIX_NO_TRUNC\fR is in effect.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBENOTDIR\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBENOSYS\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
The file system does not support symbolic links.
.RE

.sp
.LP
The \fBreadlink()\fR function may fail if:
.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBEACCES\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
Read permission is denied for the directory.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBELOOP\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
More than {\fBSYMLOOP_MAX\fR} symbolic links were encountered in resolving
\fIpath\fR.
.RE

.sp
.ne 2
.mk
.na
\fB\fBENAMETOOLONG\fR\fR
.ad
.RS 16n
.rt  
As a result of encountering a symbolic link in resolution of the path argument,
the length of the substituted pathname string exceeded {\fBPATH_MAX\fR}.
.RE

.SH USAGE
.sp
.LP
Portable applications should not assume that the returned contents of the
symbolic link are null-terminated.
.SH ATTRIBUTES
.sp
.LP
See \fBattributes\fR(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
.sp

.sp
.TS
tab() box;
cw(2.75i) |cw(2.75i) 
lw(2.75i) |lw(2.75i) 
.
ATTRIBUTE TYPEATTRIBUTE VALUE
_
Interface StabilityStandard
_
MT-LevelAsync-Signal-Safe
.TE

.SH SEE ALSO
.sp
.LP
\fBstat\fR(2), \fBsymlink\fR(2), \fBattributes\fR(5), \fBstandards\fR(5)