link() - Unix, Linux System Call

NAME

link - make a new name for a file

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int link(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath);

DESCRIPTION

link() creates a new link (also known as a hard link) to an existing file.

If newpath exists it will not be overwritten.

This new name may be used exactly as the old one for any operation; both names refer to the same file (and so have the same permissions and ownership) and it is impossible to tell which name was the `original’.

RETURN VALUE

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

ERRORS

Tag	Description
EACCES	Write access to the directory containing newpath is denied, or search permission is denied for one of the directories in the path prefix of oldpath or newpath. (See also path_resolution(2).)
EEXIST	newpath already exists.
EFAULT	oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.
EIO	An I/O error occurred.
ELOOP	Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving oldpath or newpath.
EMLINK	The file referred to by oldpath already has the maximum number of links to it.
ENAMETOOLONG
	oldpath or newpath was too long.
ENOENT	A directory component in oldpath or newpath does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
ENOMEM	Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOSPC	The device containing the file has no room for the new directory entry.
ENOTDIR
	A component used as a directory in oldpath or newpath is not, in fact, a directory.
EPERM	oldpath is a directory.
EPERM	The filesystem containing oldpath and newpath does not support the creation of hard links.
EROFS	The file is on a read-only filesystem.
EXDEV	oldpath and newpath are not on the same mounted filesystem. (Linux permits a filesystem to be mounted at multiple points, but link(2) does not work across different mount points, even if the same filesystem is mounted on both.)

NOTES

Hard links, as created by link(), cannot span filesystems. Use symlink() if this is required.

POSIX.1-2001 says that link() should dereference oldpath if it is a symbolic link. However, Linux does not do so: if oldpath is a symbolic link, then newpath is created as a (hard) link to the same symbolic link file (i.e., newpath becomes a symbolic link to the same file that oldpath refers to). Some other implementations behave in the same manner as Linux.

CONFORMING TO

SVr4, 4.3BSD, POSIX.1-2001 (except as noted above).

BUGS

On NFS file systems, the return code may be wrong in case the NFS server performs the link creation and dies before it can say so. Use stat(2) to find out if the link got created.