readlink invocation (GNU Coreutils 9.0)
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12.6 readlink: Print value of a symlink or canonical file name
readlink
may work in one of two supported modes:
- ‘
Readlink mode
’ readlink
outputs the value of the given symbolic links. Ifreadlink
is invoked with an argument other than the name of a symbolic link, it produces no output and exits with a nonzero exit code.- ‘
Canonicalize mode
’ readlink
outputs the absolute name of the given files which contain no.
,..
components nor any repeated separators (/
) or symbolic links. Note therealpath
command is the preferred command to use for canonicalization. See realpath invocation.
readlink [option]… file…
By default, readlink
operates in readlink mode.
The program accepts the following options. Also see Common options.
- ‘
-f
’
‘--canonicalize
’ Activate canonicalize mode. If any component of the file name except the last one is missing or unavailable,
readlink
produces no output and exits with a nonzero exit code. A trailing slash is ignored.- ‘
-e
’
‘--canonicalize-existing
’ Activate canonicalize mode. If any component is missing or unavailable,
readlink
produces no output and exits with a nonzero exit code. A trailing slash requires that the name resolve to a directory.- ‘
-m
’
‘--canonicalize-missing
’ Activate canonicalize mode. If any component is missing or unavailable,
readlink
treats it as a directory.- ‘
-n
’
‘--no-newline
’ Do not print the output delimiter, when a single
file
is specified. Print a warning if specified along with multiplefile
s.- ‘
-s
’
‘-q
’
‘--silent
’
‘--quiet
’ Suppress most error messages. On by default.
- ‘
-v
’
‘--verbose
’ Report error messages.
- ‘
-z
’
‘--zero
’ Output a zero byte (ASCII NUL) at the end of each line, rather than a newline. This option enables other programs to parse the output even when that output would contain data with embedded newlines.
The readlink
utility first appeared in OpenBSD 2.1.
The realpath
command without options, operates like readlink
in canonicalize mode.
An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value indicates failure.
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