Symbolic Links (The GNU C Library)

### 14.6 Symbolic Links ¶

GNU systems support soft links or symbolic links. This is a kind of “file” that is essentially a pointer to another file name. Unlike hard links, symbolic links can be made to directories or across file systems with no restrictions. You can also make a symbolic link to a name which is not the name of any file. (Opening this link will fail until a file by that name is created.) Likewise, if the symbolic link points to an existing file which is later deleted, the symbolic link continues to point to the same file name even though the name no longer names any file.

The reason symbolic links work the way they do is that special things happen when you try to open the link. The `open` function realizes you have specified the name of a link, reads the file name contained in the link, and opens that file name instead. The `stat` function likewise operates on the file that the symbolic link points to, instead of on the link itself.

By contrast, other operations such as deleting or renaming the file operate on the link itself. The functions `readlink` and `lstat` also refrain from following symbolic links, because their purpose is to obtain information about the link. `link`, the function that makes a hard link, does too. It makes a hard link to the symbolic link, which one rarely wants.

Some systems have, for some functions operating on files, a limit on how many symbolic links are followed when resolving a path name. The limit if it exists is published in the `sys/param.h` header file.

Macro: `int` MAXSYMLINKS ¶

  The macro `MAXSYMLINKS` specifies how many symlinks some function will follow before returning `ELOOP`. Not all functions behave the same and this value is not the same as that returned for `_SC_SYMLOOP` by `sysconf`. In fact, the `sysconf` result can indicate that there is no fixed limit although `MAXSYMLINKS` exists and has a finite value.

Prototypes for most of the functions listed in this section are in `unistd.h`.

Function: `int` symlink `(const char *oldname, const char *newname)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  The `symlink` function makes a symbolic link to oldname named newname.

  The normal return value from `symlink` is `0`. A return value of `-1` indicates an error. In addition to the usual file name syntax errors (see File Name Errors), the following `errno` error conditions are defined for this function:

  `EEXIST`

    There is already an existing file named newname.

  `EROFS`

    The file newname would exist on a read-only file system.

  `ENOSPC`

    The directory or file system cannot be extended to make the new link.

  `EIO`

    A hardware error occurred while reading or writing data on the disk.

Function: `ssize_t` readlink `(const char *filename, char *buffer, size_t size)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Safe | AC-Safe | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  The `readlink` function gets the value of the symbolic link filename. The file name that the link points to is copied into buffer. This file name string is not null-terminated; `readlink` normally returns the number of characters copied. The size argument specifies the maximum number of characters to copy, usually the allocation size of buffer.

  If the return value equals size, you cannot tell whether or not there was room to return the entire name. So make a bigger buffer and call `readlink` again. Here is an example:

      char *
      readlink_malloc (const char *filename)
      {
        size_t size = 50;
        char *buffer = NULL;

        while (1)
          {
            buffer = xreallocarray (buffer, size, 2);
            size *= 2;
            ssize_t nchars = readlink (filename, buffer, size);
            if (nchars < 0)
              {
                free (buffer);
                return NULL;
              }
            if (nchars < size)
              return buffer;
          }
      }

  A value of `-1` is returned in case of error. In addition to the usual file name errors (see File Name Errors), the following `errno` error conditions are defined for this function:

  `EINVAL`

    The named file is not a symbolic link.

  `EIO`

    A hardware error occurred while reading or writing data on the disk.

In some situations it is desirable to resolve all the symbolic links to get the real name of a file where no prefix names a symbolic link which is followed and no filename in the path is `.` or `..`. This is for instance desirable if files have to be compared in which case different names can refer to the same inode.

Function: `char *` canonicalize_file_name `(const char *name)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem fd | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  The `canonicalize_file_name` function returns the absolute name of the file named by name which contains no `.`, `..` components nor any repeated path separators (`/`) or symlinks. The result is passed back as the return value of the function in a block of memory allocated with `malloc`. If the result is not used anymore the memory should be freed with a call to `free`.

  If any of the path components are missing the function returns a NULL pointer. This is also what is returned if the length of the path reaches or exceeds `PATH_MAX` characters. In any case `errno` is set accordingly.

  `ENAMETOOLONG`

    The resulting path is too long. This error only occurs on systems which have a limit on the file name length.

  `EACCES`

    At least one of the path components is not readable.

  `ENOENT`

    The input file name is empty.

  `ENOENT`

    At least one of the path components does not exist.

  `ELOOP`

    More than `MAXSYMLINKS` many symlinks have been followed.

  This function is a GNU extension and is declared in `stdlib.h`.

The Unix standard includes a similar function which differs from `canonicalize_file_name` in that the user has to provide the buffer where the result is placed in.

Function: `char *` realpath `(const char *restrict name, char *restrict resolved)` ¶

  Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe heap | AC-Unsafe mem fd | See POSIX Safety Concepts.

  A call to `realpath` where the resolved parameter is `NULL` behaves exactly like `canonicalize_file_name`. The function allocates a buffer for the file name and returns a pointer to it. If resolved is not `NULL` it points to a buffer into which the result is copied. It is the callers responsibility to allocate a buffer which is large enough. On systems which define `PATH_MAX` this means the buffer must be large enough for a pathname of this size. For systems without limitations on the pathname length the requirement cannot be met and programs should not call `realpath` with anything but `NULL` for the second parameter.

  One other difference is that the buffer resolved (if nonzero) will contain the part of the path component which does not exist or is not readable if the function returns `NULL` and `errno` is set to `EACCES` or `ENOENT`.

  This function is declared in `stdlib.h`.

The advantage of using this function is that it is more widely available. The drawback is that it reports failures for long paths on systems which have no limits on the file name length.