diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 822146f98..da733cbd1 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -81,6 +81,10 @@ GNU coreutils NEWS                                    -*- outline -*-
   'pinky' will now exit immediately upon receiving a write error, which is
   significant when reading large plan or project files.
 
+  'readlink' and 'realpath' will now exit promptly upon receiving a write error,
+  which is significant when canonicalizing multiple file names longer than
+  PATH_MAX.
+
   'timeout' on Linux will always terminate the child in the case where the
   timeout process itself dies, like when it receives a KILL signal for example.
 
diff --git a/src/readlink.c b/src/readlink.c
index 23f9d3b83..498826882 100644
--- a/src/readlink.c
+++ b/src/readlink.c
@@ -171,6 +171,8 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
           if (! no_newline)
             putchar (use_nuls ? '\0' : '\n');
           free (value);
+          if (ferror (stdout))
+            write_error ();
         }
       else
         {
diff --git a/src/realpath.c b/src/realpath.c
index 24689a624..d6c386489 100644
--- a/src/realpath.c
+++ b/src/realpath.c
@@ -166,6 +166,9 @@ process_path (char const *fname, int can_mode)
 
   free (can_fname);
 
+  if (ferror (stdout))
+    write_error ();
+
   return true;
 }