make realpath() in c++ not to resolve symlink

Question

I am using this code to get absolute path of a file:

String getAbsolutePath(String x){
    char path[FILENAME_MAX+1];
    realpath(x.c_str(),path);
    return toString(path);

}

But the realpath() function resolves symlinks too. How can I not resolve the symlinks i.e get the path of the symlink itself (not the file pointed to by the link)?