SYMLINKS(8)						      System Manager's Manual						       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, dangling, 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 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 absolute 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 alternative 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
       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 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)