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



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

NAME
       lstat - get symbolic link status

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/stat.h>

       int lstat(const char *restrict path, struct stat *restrict buf);


DESCRIPTION
       The  lstat()  function  shall  be  equivalent to stat(), except when path refers to a symbolic link. In that case lstat()
       shall return information about the link, while stat() shall return information about the file the link references.

       For symbolic links, the st_mode member shall contain meaningful information when used with the file type macros, and  the
       st_size  member  shall contain the length of the pathname contained in the symbolic link. File mode bits and the contents
       of the remaining members of the stat structure are unspecified.  The value returned in the st_size member is  the  length
       of the contents of the symbolic link, and does not count any trailing null.

RETURN VALUE
       Upon successful completion, lstat() shall return 0. Otherwise, it shall return -1 and set errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       The lstat() function shall fail if:

       EACCES A component of the path prefix denies search permission.

       EIO    An error occurred while reading from the file system.

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

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

       ENOTDIR
              A component of the path prefix is not a directory.

       ENOENT A component of path does not name an existing file or path is an empty string.

       EOVERFLOW
              The  file  size  in bytes or the number of blocks allocated to the file or the file serial number cannot be repre-
              sented correctly in the structure pointed to by buf.


       The lstat() function may fail if:

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

       ENAMETOOLONG
              As a result of encountering a symbolic link in resolution of the path argument,  the  length  of  the  substituted
              pathname string exceeded {PATH_MAX}.

       EOVERFLOW
              One of the members is too large to store into the structure pointed to by the buf argument.


       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES
   Obtaining Symbolic Link Status Information
       The  following  example  shows  how  to obtain status information for a symbolic link named /modules/pass1. The structure
       variable buffer is defined for the stat structure. If the path argument specified the filename for the file pointed to by
       the symbolic link ( /home/cnd/mod1), the results of calling the function would be the same as those returned by a call to
       the stat() function.


              #include <sys/stat.h>


              struct stat buffer;
              int status;
              ...
              status = lstat("/modules/pass1", &buffer);

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

RATIONALE
       The lstat() function is not required to update the time-related fields if the named file is not a  symbolic  link.  While
       the st_uid, st_gid, st_atime, st_mtime, and st_ctime members of the stat structure may apply to a symbolic link, they are
       not required to do so. No functions in IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 are required to maintain any of these time fields.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       fstat(), readlink(), stat(), symlink(), the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <sys/stat.h>

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003  Edition,  Standard  for
       Information  Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
       right (C) 2001-2003 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.open-
       group.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                                           2003                                                     LSTAT(3P)