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 directories 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, dan-
gling, messy, lengthy, or other_fs.
relative links are those expressed as paths relative to the directory
in which the links reside, usually independent of the mount point of
the filesystem.
absolute links are those given as an absolute path from the root direc-
tory as indicated by a leading slash (/).
dangling links are those for which the target of the link does not cur-
rently exist. This commonly occurs for absolute links when a filesys-
tem is mounted at other than its customary mount point (such as when
the normal root filesystem is mounted at /mnt after booting from alter-
native 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 necessary in the path
(eg. /bin/vi -> ../bin/vim) These are only detected when -s is speci-
fied, 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 filesys-
tem.
-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 filesystems.
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)
