symlinks

 

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 SYMLINKS(8)                                           SYMLINKS(8)
 
 
 
NAME
        symlinks - symbolic link maintenance utility
 
SYNOPSIS
        symlinks [ -cdrstv ] dirlist
 
DESCRIPTION
        symlinks is a useful utility for maintainers of FTP sites,
        CDROMs, and Linux software distributions.  It scans direc­
        tories  for symbolic links and lists them on stdout, often
        revealing flaws in the filesystem tree.
 
        Each link is output with  a  classification  of  relative,
        absolute, dangling, messy, lengthy, or other_fs.
 
        relative  links  are  those expressed as paths relative to
        the directory in which the links reside, usually  indepen­
        dent of the mount point of the filesystem.
 
        absolute  links  are  those given as an absolute path from
        the root directory as indicated by a leading slash (/).
 
        dangling links are those for which the target of the  link
        does  not currently exist.  This commonly occurs for abso­
        lute links when a filesystem is mounted at other than  its
        customary  mount  point  (such  as  when  the  normal root
        filesystem is mounted at /mnt after booting from  alterna­
        tive media).
 
        messy links are links which contain unnecessary slashes or
        dots in the path.  These are cleaned up as well when -c is
        specified.
 
        lengthy  links  are links which use "../" more than neces­
        sary in the path (eg.  /bin/vi ->  ../bin/vim)  These  are
        only  detected  when -s is specified, and are only cleaned
        up when -c is also specified.
 
        other_fs are those links whose target currently resides on
        a  different  filesystem from where symlinks was run (most
        useful with -r ).
 
 
OPTIONS
        -c     convert absolute links (within the same filesystem)
               to  relative links.  This permits links to maintain
               their validity regardless of the mount  point  used
               for  the  filesystem  --  a desirable setup in most
               cases.  This option also causes any messy links  to
               be  cleaned up, and, if -s was also specified, then
               lengthy links are also shortened.   Links  affected
               by -c are prefixed with changed in the output.
 
        -d     causes dangling links to be removed.
 
        -r     recursively  operate  on  subdirectories within the
               same filesystem.
 
        -s     causes lengthy links to be detected.
 
        -t     is used to test for what symlinks would  do  if  -c
               were   specified,   but   without  really  changing
               anything.
 
        -v     show all  symbolic  links.   By  default,  relative
               links are not shown unless -v is specified.
 
 
 BUGS
        symlinks  does not recurse or change links across filesys­
        tems.
 
 
AUTHOR
        symlinks has been written by Mark Lord <mlord@bnr.ca>, the
        developer  and  maintainer  of the IDE Performance Package
        for linux.
 
SEE ALSO
        symlink(2)
 
 
 
 Version 1.2               November 1994               SYMLINKS(8)

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