.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt; .\" and Copyright (C) 1993 Michael Haardt, Ian Jackson. .\" and Copyright (C) 2006, 2014 Michael Kerrisk .\" .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft .\" .\" Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith .\" Modified 1996-04-26 by Nick Duffek .\" Modified 1996-11-06 by Eric S. Raymond .\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond .\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk .\" .TH symlink 2 2023-03-30 "Linux man-pages 6.04" .SH NAME symlink, symlinkat \- make a new name for a file .SH LIBRARY Standard C library .RI ( libc ", " \-lc ) .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .B #include .PP .BI "int symlink(const char *" target ", const char *" linkpath ); .PP .BR "#include " "/* Definition of " AT_* " constants */" .B #include .PP .BI "int symlinkat(const char *" target ", int " newdirfd \ ", const char *" linkpath ); .PP .fi .RS -4 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see .BR feature_test_macros (7)): .RE .PP .BR symlink (): .nf _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500 || _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L .\" || _XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED || /* glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE .fi .PP .BR symlinkat (): .nf Since glibc 2.10: _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L Before glibc 2.10: _ATFILE_SOURCE .fi .SH DESCRIPTION .BR symlink () creates a symbolic link named .I linkpath which contains the string .IR target . .PP 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. .PP Symbolic links may contain .I .. path components, which (if used at the start of the link) refer to the parent directories of that in which the link resides. .PP 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. .PP The permissions of a symbolic link are irrelevant; the ownership is ignored when following the link (except when the .I protected_symlinks feature is enabled, as explained in .BR proc (5)), but is checked when removal or renaming of the link is requested and the link is in a directory with the sticky bit .RB ( S_ISVTX ) set. .PP If .I linkpath exists, it will .I not be overwritten. .SS symlinkat() The .BR symlinkat () system call operates in exactly the same way as .BR symlink (), except for the differences described here. .PP If the pathname given in .I linkpath is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor .I newdirfd (rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling process, as is done by .BR symlink () for a relative pathname). .PP If .I linkpath is relative and .I newdirfd is the special value .BR AT_FDCWD , then .I linkpath is interpreted relative to the current working directory of the calling process (like .BR symlink ()). .PP If .I linkpath is absolute, then .I newdirfd is ignored. .PP See .BR openat (2) for an explanation of the need for .BR symlinkat (). .SH RETURN VALUE On success, zero is returned. On error, \-1 is returned, and .I errno is set to indicate the error. .SH ERRORS .TP .B EACCES Write access to the directory containing .I linkpath is denied, or one of the directories in the path prefix of .I linkpath did not allow search permission. (See also .BR path_resolution (7).) .TP .B EBADF .RB ( symlinkat ()) .I linkpath is relative but .I newdirfd is neither .B AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor. .TP .B EDQUOT The user's quota of resources on the filesystem has been exhausted. The resources could be inodes or disk blocks, depending on the filesystem implementation. .TP .B EEXIST .I linkpath already exists. .TP .B EFAULT .IR target " or " linkpath " points outside your accessible address space." .TP .B EIO An I/O error occurred. .TP .B ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving .IR linkpath . .TP .B ENAMETOOLONG .IR target " or " linkpath " was too long." .TP .B ENOENT A directory component in .I linkpath does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link, or .I target or .I linkpath is an empty string. .TP .B ENOENT .RB ( symlinkat ()) .I linkpath is a relative pathname and .I newdirfd refers to a directory that has been deleted. .TP .B ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available. .TP .B ENOSPC The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry. .TP .B ENOTDIR A component used as a directory in .I linkpath is not, in fact, a directory. .TP .B ENOTDIR .RB ( symlinkat ()) .I linkpath is relative and .I newdirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a directory. .TP .B EPERM The filesystem containing .I linkpath does not support the creation of symbolic links. .TP .B EROFS .I linkpath is on a read-only filesystem. .SH STANDARDS POSIX.1-2008. .SH HISTORY .TP .BR symlink () SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001. .\" SVr4 documents additional error codes EDQUOT and ENOSYS. .\" See .\" .BR open (2) .\" re multiple files with the same name, and NFS. .TP .BR symlinkat () POSIX.1-2008. Linux 2.6.16, glibc 2.4. .SS glibc notes On older kernels where .BR symlinkat () is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of .BR symlink (). When .I linkpath is a relative pathname, glibc constructs a pathname based on the symbolic link in .I /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the .I newdirfd argument. .SH NOTES No checking of .I target is done. .PP Deleting the name referred to by a symbolic link will actually delete the file (unless it also has other hard links). If this behavior is not desired, use .BR link (2). .SH SEE ALSO .BR ln (1), .BR namei (1), .BR lchown (2), .BR link (2), .BR lstat (2), .BR open (2), .BR readlink (2), .BR rename (2), .BR unlink (2), .BR path_resolution (7), .BR symlink (7)