linkinfo

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

linkinfoGets information about a link

Description

linkinfo(string $path): int|false

Gets information about a link.

This function is used to verify if a link (pointed to by path) really exists (using the same method as the S_ISLNK macro defined in stat.h).

Parameters

path

Path to the link.

Return Values

linkinfo() returns the st_dev field of the Unix C stat structure returned by the lstat system call. Returns a non-negative integer on success, -1 in case the link was not found, or false if an open.base_dir violation occurs.

Examples

Example #1 linkinfo() example

<?php

echo linkinfo('/vmlinuz'); // 835

?>

See Also

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User Contributed Notes 1 note

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rjb at robertjbrown dot com
12 years ago
I expected this function to return FALSE or 0 if a symbolic link did not exist (per the documentation above), but that's not what happened. Reading the man page for the Linux kerne's stat call here: http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online/pages/man2/stat.2.html it says this:

RETURN VALUE - On success, zero is returned.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.

... which is what is happening in my case. I am doing a linkinfo('/path/to/file'); on a missing symlink, and I get back a value of -1. As we know, a value of -1 is not going to evaluate to a FALSE or 0.

My point - be careful with return values for missing symlinks.
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