link man page on YellowDog

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   18644 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
YellowDog logo
[printable version]

LINK(2)			   Linux Programmer's Manual		       LINK(2)

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
       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_resolu‐
	      tion(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 sym‐
       link() 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 man‐
       ner 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.

SEE ALSO
       ln(1), linkat(2), open(2), path_resolution(2), rename(2), stat(2), sym‐
       link(2), unlink(2)

Linux 2.6.7			  2004-06-23			       LINK(2)
[top]

List of man pages available for YellowDog

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