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filegoattributeshardlink

Check whether a file is a hard link


How do you check whether a file is a hard link in Go? os.FileMode only has a mode for symlinks, not hard links.

I had an idea that unfortunately doesn't work:

package main

func main() {
    filename := os.Args[1]
    var hardlink bool
    link, _ := os.Readlink(filename)
    fi, _ := os.Stat(filename)
    mode := string(fi.Mode().String()[0])
    if link != "" && mode != "L" {
        hardlink = true
    }
    fmt.Printf("%v is hard link? %v\n", filename, hardlink)
}

This^ doesn't work because os.Readlink reads only symlinks, not hard links.

I found a somewhat related answer:
Counting hard links to a file in Go
But this answer shows how to find the number of hard links to a file, not whether a file itself is a hard link.

I'm guessing that the syscall package used in that answer or, better yet, the sys package has a way to test whether a file's a hard link. Does anyone know to do this? (I have trouble understanding those packages because they're so low-level.)

EDIT

I should add the reason why I'd like to check this. I'm trying to make a function to create a tar archive of a directory [using filepath.Walk()]. In this function, when I create the *tar.Header for a file, I set a value to *tar.Header.Typeflag.
For example, if fi is a file's *os.FileInfo variable and hdr is the *tar.Header variable for that file's place in a new tar archive, it looks like this:

if fi.Mode().IsDir() {
    hdr.Typeflag = tar.TypeDir
}

In the tar package, the modes for hard links and regular files are distinct, TypeLink and TypeReg, but this isn't the case in the os package. So running this won't set the correct Typeflag:

hdr.Mode = int64(fi.Mode())

Solution

  • Figured it out from an example in Docker's source code:
    https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/pkg/archive/archive.go
    https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/pkg/archive/archive_unix.go

    package main
    
    import (
        "errors"
        "fmt"
        "log"
        "os"
        "syscall"
    )
    
    func main() {
        filename := os.Args[1]
    
        // 'os.Lstat()' reads the link itself.
        // 'os.Stat()' would read the link's target.
        fi, err := os.Lstat(filename)
        if err != nil {
            log.Fatal(err)
        }
    
        // https://github.com/docker/docker/blob/master/pkg/archive/archive_unix.go
        // in 'func setHeaderForSpecialDevice()'
        s, ok := fi.Sys().(*syscall.Stat_t)
        if !ok {
            err = errors.New("cannot convert stat value to syscall.Stat_t")
            log.Fatal(err)
        }
    
        // The index number of this file's inode:
        inode := uint64(s.Ino)
        // Total number of files/hardlinks connected to this file's inode:
        nlink := uint32(s.Nlink)
    
        // True if the file is a symlink.
        if fi.Mode()&os.ModeSymlink != 0 {
            link, err := os.Readlink(fi.Name())
            if err != nil {
                log.Fatal(err)
            }
            fmt.Printf("%v is a symlink to %v on inode %v.\n", filename, link, inode)
            os.Exit(0)
        }
    
        // Otherwise, for hardlinks:
        fmt.Printf("The inode for %v, %v, has %v hardlinks.\n", filename, inode, nlink)
        if nlink > 1 {
            fmt.Printf("Inode %v has %v other hardlinks besides %v.\n", inode, nlink, filename)
        } else {
            fmt.Printf("%v is the only hardlink to inode %v.\n", filename, inode)
        }
    }