REALPATH(3)            FreeBSD Library Functions Manual            REALPATH(3)

NAME
     realpath - returns the canonicalized absolute pathname

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <stdlib.h>

     char *
     realpath(const char * restrict pathname, char * restrict resolved_path);

DESCRIPTION
     The realpath() function resolves all symbolic links, extra "/" characters
     and references to /./ and /../ in pathname, and copies the resulting
     absolute pathname into the memory pointed to by resolved_path.  The
     resolved_path argument must point to a buffer capable of storing at least
     PATH_MAX characters, or be NULL.

     The realpath() function will resolve both absolute and relative paths and
     return the absolute pathname corresponding to pathname.  All components
     of pathname must exist when realpath() is called, and all but the last
     component must name either directories or symlinks pointing to the
     directories.

RETURN VALUES
     The realpath() function returns resolved_path on success.  If the
     function was supplied NULL as resolved_path, and operation did not cause
     errors, the returned value is a null-terminated string in a buffer
     allocated by a call to malloc(3).  If an error occurs, realpath() returns
     NULL, and if resolved_path is not NULL, the array that it points to
     contains the pathname which caused the problem.

ERRORS
     The function realpath() may fail and set the external variable errno for
     any of the errors specified for the library functions lstat(2),
     readlink(2) and getcwd(3).

SEE ALSO
     getcwd(3)

HISTORY
     The realpath() function first appeared in 4.4BSD.

CAVEATS
     This implementation of realpath() differs slightly from the Solaris
     implementation.  The 4.4BSD version always returns absolute pathnames,
     whereas the Solaris implementation will, under certain circumstances,
     return a relative resolved_path when given a relative pathname.

FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6          May 11, 2012          FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6