NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON
SYMLINK(2) Linux Programmer's Manual SYMLINK(2)
symlink - make a new name for a file
#include <unistd.h>
int symlink(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
symlink(): _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L
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 (S_ISVTX) set.
If newpath exists it will not be overwritten.
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set
appropriately.
EACCES Write access to the directory containing newpath is denied, or one of
the directories in the path prefix of newpath did not allow search
permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EEXIST newpath already exists.
EFAULT oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.
EIO An I/O error occurred.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving newpath.
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.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry.
ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in newpath is not, in fact, a
directory.
EPERM The file system containing newpath does not support the creation of
symbolic links.
EROFS newpath is on a read-only file system.
SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001.
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 behavior is not desired, use
link(2).
ln(1), lchown(2), link(2), lstat(2), open(2), readlink(2), rename(2),
symlinkat(2), unlink(2), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)
This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2007-07-26 SYMLINK(2)