SYMLINK(2)

NAME
symlink - make a new name for a file

SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>

int symlink(const char *topath, const char *frompath);

DESCRIPTION
symlink creates a symbolic link named frompath which contains the string topath. 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 set. If newpath exists it will not be overwritten.

RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

EPERM
    The filesystem containing pathname does not support the creation of symbolic links.

EFAULT
    oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.

EACCES
    Write access to the directory containing newpath is not allowed for the process's effective uid, or one of the directories in newpath did not allow search (execute) permission.

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.

ENOTDIR
    A component used as a directory in newpath is not, in fact, a directory.

ENOMEM
    Insufficient kernel memory was available.

EROFS
    The file is on a read-only filesystem.

EEXIST
    newpath already exists.

ELOOP
    newpath contains a reference to a circular symbolic link, ie a symbolic link whose expansion contains a reference to itself.

ENOSPC
    The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry.

NOTES
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 behaviour is not desired, use link.

CONFORMING TO
SVr4, SVID, POSIX, BSD 4.3. SVr4 documents additional error codes EDQUOT, EIO, ENAMETOOLONG, ENOSYS.

BUGS
See open(2) re multiple files with the same name, and NFS.

SEE ALSO
link(2), unlink(2), rename(2), open(2), lstat(2), ln(1), link(8).