realpath(3p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | EXAMPLES | APPLICATION USAGE | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

REALPATH(3P)            POSIX Programmer's Manual           REALPATH(3P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       realpath — resolve a pathname

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <stdlib.h>

       char *realpath(const char *restrict file_name,
           char *restrict resolved_name);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The realpath() function shall derive, from the pathname pointed
       to by file_name, an absolute pathname that resolves to the same
       directory entry, whose resolution does not involve '.', '..', or
       symbolic links. If resolved_name is a null pointer, the generated
       pathname shall be stored as a null-terminated string in a buffer
       allocated as if by a call to malloc().  Otherwise, if {PATH_MAX}
       is defined as a constant in the <limits.h> header, then the
       generated pathname shall be stored as a null-terminated string,
       up to a maximum of {PATH_MAX} bytes, in the buffer pointed to by
       resolved_name.

       If resolved_name is not a null pointer and {PATH_MAX} is not
       defined as a constant in the <limits.h> header, the behavior is
       undefined.

RETURN VALUE         top

       Upon successful completion, realpath() shall return a pointer to
       the buffer containing the resolved name.  Otherwise, realpath()
       shall return a null pointer and set errno to indicate the error.

       If the resolved_name argument is a null pointer, the pointer
       returned by realpath() can be passed to free().

       If the resolved_name argument is not a null pointer and the
       realpath() function fails, the contents of the buffer pointed to
       by resolved_name are undefined.

ERRORS         top

       The realpath() function shall fail if:

       EACCES Search permission was denied for a component of the path
              prefix of file_name.

       EINVAL The file_name argument is a null pointer.

       EIO    An error occurred while reading from the file system.

       ELOOP  A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during
              resolution of the file_name argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The length of a component of a pathname is longer than
              {NAME_MAX}.

       ENOENT A component of file_name does not name an existing file or
              file_name points to an empty string.

       ENOTDIR
              A component of the path prefix names an existing file that
              is neither a directory nor a symbolic link to a directory,
              or the file_name argument contains at least one
              non-<slash> character and ends with one or more trailing
              <slash> characters and the last pathname component names
              an existing file that is neither a directory nor a
              symbolic link to a directory.

       The realpath() function may fail if:

       EACCES The file_name argument does not begin with a <slash> and
              none of the symbolic links (if any) processed during
              pathname resolution of file_name had contents that began
              with a <slash>, and either search permission was denied
              for the current directory or read or search permission was
              denied for a directory above the current directory in the
              file hierarchy.

       ELOOP  More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered
              during resolution of the file_name argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The length of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or pathname
              resolution of a symbolic link produced an intermediate
              result with a length that exceeds {PATH_MAX}.

       ENOMEM Insufficient storage space is available.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES         top

   Generating an Absolute Pathname
       The following example generates an absolute pathname for the file
       identified by the symlinkpath argument. The generated pathname is
       stored in the buffer pointed to by actualpath.

           #include <stdlib.h>
           ...
           char *symlinkpath = "/tmp/symlink/file";
           char *actualpath;

           actualpath = realpath(symlinkpath, NULL);
           if (actualpath != NULL)
           {
               ... use actualpath ...

               free(actualpath);
           }
           else
           {
               ... handle error ...
           }

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       For functions that allocate memory as if by malloc(), the
       application should release such memory when it is no longer
       required by a call to free().  For realpath(), this is the return
       value.

RATIONALE         top

       Since realpath() has no length argument, if {PATH_MAX} is not
       defined as a constant in <limits.h>, applications have no way of
       determining how large a buffer they need to allocate for it to be
       safe to pass to realpath().  A {PATH_MAX} value obtained from a
       prior pathconf() call is out-of-date by the time realpath() is
       called. Hence the only reliable way to use realpath() when
       {PATH_MAX} is not defined in <limits.h> is to pass a null pointer
       for resolved_name so that realpath() will allocate a buffer of
       the necessary size.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       fpathconf(3p), free(3p), getcwd(3p), sysconf(3p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, limits.h(0p),
       stdlib.h(0p)

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 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 .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                      REALPATH(3P)

Pages that refer to this page: stdlib.h(0p)