symlink - make a new name for a file
#include <unistd.h>
int symlink(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);
symlink creates a symbolic link named newpath which contains the string
oldpath.
Symbolic links are interpreted at run-time as if the contents of the
link had been substituted into the path being followed to find a file
or directory.
Symbolic links may contain .. path components, which (if used at the
start of the link) refer to the parent directories of that in which the
link resides.
A symbolic link (also known as a soft link) may point to an existing
file or to a nonexistent one; the latter case is known as a dangling
link.
The permissions of a symbolic link are irrelevant; the ownership is
ignored when following the link, but is checked when removal or renaming
of the link is requested and the link is in a directory with the
sticky bit set.
If newpath exists it will not be overwritten.
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
set appropriately.
EPERM The filesystem containing newpath does not support the creation
of symbolic links.
EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.
EACCES Write access to the directory containing newpath is not allowed
for the process's effective uid, or one of the directories in
newpath did not allow search (execute) permission.
ENAMETOOLONG [Toc] [Back]
oldpath or newpath was too long.
ENOENT A directory component in newpath does not exist or is a dangling
symbolic link, or oldpath is the empty string.
ENOTDIR [Toc] [Back]
A component used as a directory in newpath is not, in fact, a
directory.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
EROFS newpath is on a read-only filesystem.
EEXIST newpath already exists.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving newpath.
ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
entry.
EIO An I/O error occurred.
No checking of oldpath is done.
Deleting the name referred to by a symlink will actually delete the
file (unless it also has other hard links). If this behaviour is not
desired, use link.
SVr4, SVID, POSIX, BSD 4.3. SVr4 documents additional error codes
SVr4, SVID, BSD 4.3, X/OPEN. SVr4 documents additional error codes
EDQUOT and ENOSYS. See open(2) re multiple files with the same name,
and NFS.
readlink(2), link(2), unlink(2), rename(2), open(2), lstat(2), ln(1)
Linux 2.0.30 1997-08-21 SYMLINK(2)
[ Back ] | 