link man page on PC-BSD

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   9747 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
PC-BSD logo
[printable version]

LINK(2)			    BSD System Calls Manual		       LINK(2)

NAME
     link, linkat — make a hard file link

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     link(const char *name1, const char *name2);

     int
     linkat(int fd1, const char *name1, int fd2, const char *name2, int flag);

DESCRIPTION
     The link() system call atomically creates the specified directory entry
     (hard link) name2 with the attributes of the underlying object pointed at
     by name1.	If the link is successful: the link count of the underlying
     object is incremented; name1 and name2 share equal access and rights to
     the underlying object.

     If name1 is removed, the file name2 is not deleted and the link count of
     the underlying object is decremented.

     The object pointed at by the name1 argument must exist for the hard link
     to succeed and both name1 and name2 must be in the same file system.  The
     name1 argument may not be a directory.

     The linkat() system call is equivalent to link except in the case where
     either name1 or name2 or both are relative paths.	In this case a rela‐
     tive path name1 is interpreted relative to the directory associated with
     the file descriptor fd1 instead of the current working directory and sim‐
     ilarly for name2 and the file descriptor fd2.

     Values for flag are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from
     the following list, defined in <fcntl.h>:

     AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW
	     If name1 names a symbolic link, a new link for the target of the
	     symbolic link is created.

     If linkat() is passed the special value AT_FDCWD in the fd1 or fd2 param‐
     eter, the current working directory is used for the respective name argu‐
     ment.  If both fd1 and fd2 have value AT_FDCWD, the behavior is identical
     to a call to link().  Unless flag contains the AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW flag, if
     name1 names a symbolic link, a new link is created for the symbolic link
     name1 and not its target.

RETURN VALUES
     The link() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS
     The link() system call will fail and no link will be created if:

     [ENOTDIR]		A component of either path prefix is not a directory.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	A component of either pathname exceeded 255 charac‐
			ters, or entire length of either path name exceeded
			1023 characters.

     [ENOENT]		A component of either path prefix does not exist.

     [EOPNOTSUPP]	The file system containing the file named by name1
			does not support links.

     [EMLINK]		The link count of the file named by name1 would exceed
			32767.

     [EACCES]		A component of either path prefix denies search per‐
			mission.

     [EACCES]		The requested link requires writing in a directory
			with a mode that denies write permission.

     [ELOOP]		Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat‐
			ing one of the pathnames.

     [ENOENT]		The file named by name1 does not exist.

     [EEXIST]		The link named by name2 does exist.

     [EPERM]		The file named by name1 is a directory.

     [EPERM]		The file named by name1 has its immutable or append-
			only flag set, see the chflags(2) manual page for more
			information.

     [EPERM]		The parent directory of the file named by name2 has
			its immutable flag set.

     [EXDEV]		The link named by name2 and the file named by name1
			are on different file systems.

     [ENOSPC]		The directory in which the entry for the new link is
			being placed cannot be extended because there is no
			space left on the file system containing the direc‐
			tory.

     [EDQUOT]		The directory in which the entry for the new link is
			being placed cannot be extended because the user's
			quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the
			directory has been exhausted.

     [EIO]		An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
			the file system to make the directory entry.

     [EROFS]		The requested link requires writing in a directory on
			a read-only file system.

     [EFAULT]		One of the pathnames specified is outside the
			process's allocated address space.

     In addition to the errors returned by the link(), the linkat() system
     call may fail if:

     [EBADF]		The name1 or name2 argument does not specify an abso‐
			lute path and the fd1 or fd2 argument, respectively,
			is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor open
			for searching.

     [EINVAL]		The value of the flag argument is not valid.

     [ENOTDIR]		The name1 or name2 argument is not an absolute path
			and fd1 or fd2, respectively, is neither AT_FDCWD nor
			a file descriptor associated with a directory.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(2), readlink(2), symlink(2), unlink(2)

STANDARDS
     The link() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990
     (“POSIX.1”).  The linkat() system call follows The Open Group Extended
     API Set 2 specification.

HISTORY
     The link() function appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.  The linkat() system
     call appeared in FreeBSD 8.0.

     The link() system call traditionally allows the super-user to link direc‐
     tories which corrupts the file system coherency.  This implementation no
     longer permits it.

BSD				April 10, 2008				   BSD
[top]

List of man pages available for PC-BSD

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net