1 .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
2 .\" and Copyright (C) 1993 Michael Haardt, Ian Jackson.
3 .\" and Copyright (C) 2006, 2014 Michael Kerrisk
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27 .\" Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith
28 .\" Modified 1996-04-26 by Nick Duffek <nsd@bbc.com>
29 .\" Modified 1996-11-06 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
30 .\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
31 .\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
33 .TH SYMLINK 2 2014-08-19 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
35 symlink, symlinkat \- make a new name for a file
38 .B #include <unistd.h>
40 .BI "int symlink(const char *" target ", const char *" linkpath );
42 .BR "#include <fcntl.h> " "/* Definition of AT_* constants */"
43 .B #include <unistd.h>
45 .BI "int symlinkat(const char *" target ", int " newdirfd \
46 ", const char *" linkpath );
50 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
51 .BR feature_test_macros (7)):
57 _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 500 ||
58 _XOPEN_SOURCE\ &&\ _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED || _POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200112L
67 _XOPEN_SOURCE\ >=\ 700 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE\ >=\ 200809L
76 creates a symbolic link named
78 which contains the string
81 Symbolic links are interpreted at run time as if the contents of the
82 link had been substituted into the path being followed to find a file or
85 Symbolic links may contain
87 path components, which (if used at the start of the link) refer to the
88 parent directories of that in which the link resides.
90 A symbolic link (also known as a soft link) may point to an existing
91 file or to a nonexistent one; the latter case is known as a dangling
94 The permissions of a symbolic link are irrelevant; the ownership is
95 ignored when following the link, but is checked when removal or
96 renaming of the link is requested and the link is in a directory with
109 system call operates in exactly the same way as
111 except for the differences described here.
113 If the pathname given in
115 is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory
116 referred to by the file descriptor
118 (rather than relative to the current working directory of
119 the calling process, as is done by
121 for a relative pathname).
131 is interpreted relative to the current working
132 directory of the calling process (like
141 On success, zero is returned.
142 On error, \-1 is returned, and
144 is set appropriately.
148 Write access to the directory containing
150 is denied, or one of the directories in the path prefix of
152 did not allow search permission.
154 .BR path_resolution (7).)
157 The user's quota of resources on the filesystem has been exhausted.
158 The resources could be inodes or disk blocks, depending on the filesystem
166 .IR target " or " linkpath " points outside your accessible address space."
169 An I/O error occurred.
172 Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
176 .IR target " or " linkpath " was too long."
179 A directory component in
181 does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link, or
186 Insufficient kernel memory was available.
189 The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
193 A component used as a directory in
195 is not, in fact, a directory.
198 The filesystem containing
200 does not support the creation of symbolic links.
204 is on a read-only filesystem.
206 The following additional errors can occur for
211 is not a valid file descriptor.
215 is a relative pathname and
217 refers to a directory that has been deleted.
223 is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory.
226 was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16;
227 library support was added to glibc in version 2.4.
230 SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
231 .\" SVr4 documents additional error codes EDQUOT and ENOSYS.
234 .\" re multiple files with the same name, and NFS.
243 Deleting the name referred to by a symbolic link will actually delete the
244 file (unless it also has other hard links).
245 If this behavior is not desired, use
248 On older kernels where
250 is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of
254 is a relative pathname,
255 glibc constructs a pathname based on the symbolic link in
257 that corresponds to the
269 .BR path_resolution (7),