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
).