LINK
Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 10 December 1997
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
- EXDEV
-
oldpath and newpath
are not on the same filesystem.
- EPERM
-
The filesystem containing
oldpath and newpath
does not support the creation of hard links.
- EFAULT
-
oldpath or newpath points outside your accessible address space.
- EACCES
-
Write access to the directory containing
newpath
is not allowed for the process's effective uid, or one of the
directories in
oldpath or newpath
did not allow search (execute) permission.
- ENAMETOOLONG
-
oldpath or newpath was too long.
- ENOENT
-
A directory component in
oldpath or newpath
does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
- ENOTDIR
-
A component used as a directory in
oldpath or newpath
is not, in fact, a directory.
- ENOMEM
-
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
- EROFS
-
The file is on a read-only filesystem.
- EEXIST
-
newpath
already exists.
- EMLINK
-
The file referred to by
oldpath
already has the maximum number of links to it.
- ELOOP
-
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
oldpath or newpath.
- ENOSPC
-
The device containing the file has no room for the new directory
entry.
- EPERM
-
oldpath
is a directory.
- EIO
-
An I/O error occurred.
NOTES
Hard links, as created by
link,
cannot span filesystems. Use
symlink
if this is required.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, SVID, POSIX, BSD 4.3, X/OPEN. SVr4 documents additional ENOLINK and
EMULTIHOP error conditions; POSIX.1 does not document ELOOP.
X/OPEN does not document EFAULT, ENOMEM or EIO.
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
symlink(2),
unlink(2),
rename(2),
open(2),
stat(2),
ln(1)