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 14.5 Symbolic Links
 ===================
 
 The GNU system supports "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 have 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 a 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)
      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 ( 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: int readlink (const char *FILENAME, char *BUFFER, size_t
           SIZE)
      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)
           {
             int size = 100;
             char *buffer = NULL;
 
             while (1)
               {
                 buffer = (char *) xrealloc (buffer, size);
                 int nchars = readlink (filename, buffer, size);
                 if (nchars < 0)
                   {
                     free (buffer);
                     return NULL;
                   }
                 if (nchars < size)
                   return buffer;
                 size *= 2;
               }
           }
 
      A value of `-1' is returned in case of error.  In addition to the
      usual file name errors ( 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 compare in which case
 different names can refer to the same inode.
 
  -- Function: char * canonicalize_file_name (const char *NAME)
      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 is 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)
      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 path on
 systems which have no limits on the file name length.
 

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