Std::experimental::filesystem::read_symlink (3) Linux Manual Page

std::experimental::filesystem::read_symlink – std::experimental::filesystem::read_symlink

Synopsis

Defined in header<experimental / filesystem>

    path read_symlink(const path &p);
(filesystem TS)

    path read_symlink(const path &p, error_code &ec);

If the path p refers to a symbolic link, returns a new path object which refers to the target of that symbolic link.
It is an error if p does not refer to a symbolic link.
The non-throwing overload returns an empty path on errors.

Parameters

p – path to a symlink
ec – out-parameter for error reporting in the non-throwing overload

Return value

The target of the symlink (which may not necessarily exist)

Exceptions

The overload that does not take a error_code& parameter throws filesystem_error on underlying OS API errors, constructed with p as the first argument and the OS error code as the error code argument. std::bad_alloc may be thrown if memory allocation fails. The overload taking a error_code& parameter sets it to the OS API error code if an OS API call fails, and executes ec.clear() if no errors occur. This overload has
noexcept specification:
noexcept

Example

// Run this code

#include <iostream>

#include <experimental/filesystem>

namespace fs = std::experimental::filesystem;

int main()

{
    // on a typical Linux system, /lib/libc.so.6 is a symlink
    fs::path p = "/lib/libc.so.6";
    if (exists(p) && is_symlink(p))
        std::cout << p << " -> " << read_symlink(p) << '\n';
    else
        std::cout << p << " does not exist or is not a symlink\n";
}

Possible output:

"/lib/libc.so.6" -> "libc-2.12.so"

std::experimental::filesystem::read_symlink (3) Linux Manual Page