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link(2)

NAME

     link -- make a hard file link

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     link(const char *name1, const char *name2);

DESCRIPTION

     The link() system call atomically creates the specified directory entry
     (hard link) name2 with the attributes of the underlying object pointed at
     by name1.	If the link is successful: the link count of the underlying
     object is incremented; name1 and name2 share equal access and rights to
     the underlying object.

     If name1 is removed, the file name2 is not deleted and the link count of
     the underlying object is decremented.

     The object pointed at by the name1 argument must exist for the hard link
     to succeed and both name1 and name2 must be in the same file system.  The
     name1 argument may not be a directory.

RETURN VALUES

     The link() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS

     The link() system call will fail and no link will be created if:

     [ENOTDIR]		A component of either path prefix is not a directory.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	A component of either pathname exceeded 255 charac-
			ters, or entire length of either path name exceeded
			1023 characters.

     [ENOENT]		A component of either path prefix does not exist.

     [EOPNOTSUPP]	The file system containing the file named by name1
			does not support links.

     [EMLINK]		The link count of the file named by name1 would exceed
			32767.

     [EACCES]		A component of either path prefix denies search per-
			mission.

     [EACCES]		The requested link requires writing in a directory
			with a mode that denies write permission.

     [ELOOP]		Too many symbolic links were encountered in translat-
			ing one of the pathnames.

			are on different file systems.

     [ENOSPC]		The directory in which the entry for the new link is
			being placed cannot be extended because there is no
			space left on the file system containing the direc-
			tory.

     [EDQUOT]		The directory in which the entry for the new link is
			being placed cannot be extended because the user's
			quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the
			directory has been exhausted.

     [EIO]		An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to
			the file system to make the directory entry.

     [EROFS]		The requested link requires writing in a directory on
			a read-only file system.

     [EFAULT]		One of the pathnames specified is outside the
			process's allocated address space.

SEE ALSO

     readlink(2), symlink(2), unlink(2)

STANDARDS

     The link() system call is expected to conform to ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990
     (``POSIX.1'').

HISTORY

     The link() function appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

     The link() system call traditionally allows the super-user to link direc-
     tories which corrupts the file system coherency.  This implementation no
     longer permits it.

FreeBSD 5.4			 March 5, 1999			   FreeBSD 5.4

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