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SYMLINKS(8)		    System Manager's Manual		   SYMLINKS(8)

NAME
       symlinks	- symbolic link	maintenance utility

SYNOPSIS
       symlinks	[ -cdorstv ] 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.

       -o     fix links	on  other  filesystems	encountered  while  recursing.
	      Normally,	other filesystems encountered are not modified by sym-
	      links.

       -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@pobox.com>, the original
       developer and maintainer	of the IDE Performance Package for linux,  the
       Linux IDE Driver	subsystem, hdparm, and a current day libata hacker.

SEE ALSO
       symlink(2)

Version	1.4			 October 2008			   SYMLINKS(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=symlinks&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>

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