The readlink() function reads where a link points to. It is unusual, as makes no effort to null terminate its second argument, buffer. Instead, it just returns the number of characters it has written.
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char buf[256];
ssizet_t len;
if ((len = readlink("/usr/bin/perl", buf, sizeof(buf)-1)) != -1)
buf[len] = '\0';
else {
/* handle error condition */
}
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Risk Analysis
This is a fairly easy mistake to make. Fortunately the consequences are not that harsh, most likely resulting Failing to properly terminate the result of readlink() can result in abnormal program termination.
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