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+.\" Copyright (c) 2001-2003 The Open Group, All Rights Reserved 
+.TH "READLINK" P 2003 "IEEE/The Open Group" "POSIX Programmer's Manual"
+.\" readlink 
+.SH NAME
+readlink \- read the contents of a symbolic link
+.SH SYNOPSIS
+.LP
+\fB#include <unistd.h>
+.br
+.sp
+ssize_t readlink(const char *restrict\fP \fIpath\fP\fB, char *restrict\fP
+\fIbuf\fP\fB,
+.br
+\ \ \ \ \ \  size_t\fP \fIbufsize\fP\fB);
+.br
+\fP
+.SH DESCRIPTION
+.LP
+The \fIreadlink\fP() function shall place the contents of the symbolic
+link referred to by \fIpath\fP in the buffer \fIbuf\fP
+which has size \fIbufsize\fP. If the number of bytes in the symbolic
+link is less than \fIbufsize\fP, the contents of the
+remainder of \fIbuf\fP are unspecified. If the \fIbuf\fP argument
+is not large enough to contain the link content, the first
+\fIbufsize\fP bytes shall be placed in \fIbuf\fP.
+.LP
+If the value of \fIbufsize\fP is greater than {SSIZE_MAX}, the result
+is implementation-defined.
+.SH RETURN VALUE
+.LP
+Upon successful completion, \fIreadlink\fP() shall return the count
+of bytes placed in the buffer. Otherwise, it shall return a
+value of -1, leave the buffer unchanged, and set \fIerrno\fP to indicate
+the error.
+.SH ERRORS
+.LP
+The \fIreadlink\fP() function shall fail if:
+.TP 7
+.B EACCES
+Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix of
+\fIpath\fP.
+.TP 7
+.B EINVAL
+The \fIpath\fP argument names a file that is not a symbolic link.
+.TP 7
+.B EIO
+An I/O error occurred while reading from the file system.
+.TP 7
+.B ELOOP
+A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the
+\fIpath\fP argument.
+.TP 7
+.B ENAMETOOLONG
+The length of the \fIpath\fP argument exceeds {PATH_MAX} or a pathname
+component is longer than {NAME_MAX}.
+.TP 7
+.B ENOENT
+A component of \fIpath\fP does not name an existing file or \fIpath\fP
+is an empty string.
+.TP 7
+.B ENOTDIR
+A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
+.sp
+.LP
+The \fIreadlink\fP() function may fail if:
+.TP 7
+.B EACCES
+Read permission is denied for the directory.
+.TP 7
+.B ELOOP
+More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during resolution
+of the \fIpath\fP argument.
+.TP 7
+.B ENAMETOOLONG
+As a result of encountering a symbolic link in resolution of the \fIpath\fP
+argument, the length of the substituted pathname
+string exceeded {PATH_MAX}.
+.sp
+.LP
+\fIThe following sections are informative.\fP
+.SH EXAMPLES
+.SS Reading the Name of a Symbolic Link
+.LP
+The following example shows how to read the name of a symbolic link
+named \fB/modules/pass1\fP.
+.sp
+.RS
+.nf
+
+\fB#include <unistd.h>
+.sp
+
+char buf[1024];
+ssizet_t len;
+\&...
+if ((len = readlink("/modules/pass1", buf, sizeof(buf)-1)) != -1)
+    buf[len] = '\\0';
+\fP
+.fi
+.RE
+.SH APPLICATION USAGE
+.LP
+Conforming applications should not assume that the returned contents
+of the symbolic link are null-terminated.
+.SH RATIONALE
+.LP
+Since IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001 does not require any association of file
+times with symbolic links, there is no requirement
+that file times be updated by \fIreadlink\fP(). The type associated
+with \fIbufsiz\fP is a \fBsize_t\fP in order to be
+consistent with both the ISO\ C standard and the definition of \fIread\fP().
+The behavior
+specified for \fIreadlink\fP() when \fIbufsiz\fP is zero represents
+historical practice. For this case, the standard developers
+considered a change whereby \fIreadlink\fP() would return the number
+of non-null bytes contained in the symbolic link with the
+buffer \fIbuf\fP remaining unchanged; however, since the \fBstat\fP
+structure member \fIst_size\fP value can be used to
+determine the size of buffer necessary to contain the contents of
+the symbolic link as returned by \fIreadlink\fP(), this proposal
+was rejected, and the historical practice retained.
+.SH FUTURE DIRECTIONS
+.LP
+None.
+.SH SEE ALSO
+.LP
+\fIlstat\fP() , \fIstat\fP() , \fIsymlink\fP() ,
+the Base Definitions volume of IEEE\ Std\ 1003.1-2001, \fI<unistd.h>\fP
+.SH COPYRIGHT
+Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
+from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
+-- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
+Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
+Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
+event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
+The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
+is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
+http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .