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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, 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 cur-
     rently 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  short-
	    ened.  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.  Nor-
	    mally, other filesystems encountered are not modified by symlinks.

     -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@pobox.com>, the original de-
     veloper 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+15.1.quarterly>

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