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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 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)

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