Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

The readlink system call places the contents of the symbolic link path in the buffer buf, which has size bufsiz. The readlink system call does not append a NUL character to buf.

The call returns the count of characters placed in the buffer if it succeeds, or a -1 if an error occurs, placing the error code in the global variable errno.

The readlink system call will fail if:

• [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
• [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
• [ENOENT] The named file does not exist.
• [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
• [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
• [EINVAL] The named file is not a symbolic link.
• [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
• [EFAULT] The buf argument extends outside the process’s allocated address space.

lstat(2), stat(2), symlink(2), symlink(7)

The readlink system call appeared in