SYMLINK (2)
make a new name for a file
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int symlink(const char * oldpath , const char * newpath );
DESCRIPTION
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.
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and
errno
is set appropriately.
ERRORS
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
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
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
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
NOTES
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 .
CONFORMING TO
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.
SEE ALSO
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