Function

GLibfile_read_link

since: 2.4

Declaration

gchar*
g_file_read_link (
  const gchar* filename,
  GError** error
)

Description

Reads the contents of the symbolic link filename like the POSIX readlink() function.

The returned string is in the encoding used for filenames. Use g_filename_to_utf8() to convert it to UTF-8.

The returned string may also be a relative path. Use g_build_filename() to convert it to an absolute path:

g_autoptr(GError) local_error = NULL;
g_autofree gchar *link_target = g_file_read_link ("/etc/localtime", &local_error);

if (local_error != NULL)
  g_error ("Error reading link: %s", local_error->message);

if (!g_path_is_absolute (link_target))
  {
    g_autofree gchar *absolute_link_target = g_build_filename ("/etc", link_target, NULL);
    g_free (link_target);
    link_target = g_steal_pointer (&absolute_link_target);
  }

Available since: 2.4

Parameters

filename

Type: const gchar*

The symbolic link.

The data is owned by the caller of the function.

The value is a file system path, using the OS encoding.

error

Type: GError **

The return location for a recoverable error.

The argument can be NULL.

If the return location is not NULL, then you must initialize it to a NULL GError*.

The argument will left initialized to NULL by the function if there are no errors.

In case of error, the argument will be set to a newly allocated GError; the caller will take ownership of the data, and be responsible for freeing it.

Return value

Type: gchar*

A newly-allocated string with the contents of the symbolic link, or NULL if an error occurred.

The caller of the function takes ownership of the data, and is responsible for freeing it.

The value is a file system path, using the OS encoding.