symlink
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
NAME
symlink - 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 oldpath which con-
tains newpath.
Symbolic links are interpreted at run-time, as if the con-
tents of the link were 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 direc-
tories 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 pathname does not sup-
port 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 The file is on a read-only filesystem.
EEXIST newpath already exists.
ELOOP newpath contains a reference to a circular sym-
bolic link, ie a symbolic link whose expansion
contains a reference to itself.
ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the
new directory entry.
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
SVID, AT&T, POSIX, BSD 4.3
BUGS
See open(2) re multiple files with the same name, and NFS.
SEE ALSO
link(2), unlink(2), rename(2), open(2), lstat(2), ln(1),
link(8).
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
Copyright (C) 1998
Hurricane Electric.
All Rights Reserved.