#!/usr/bin/perl
###########################################
# symlinkdir -- Resolve symlinks
#    Documentation: 'perldoc symlinkdir'
###########################################

use Getopt::Std;
use Pod::Usage;
use File::Basename;

our $VERSION = "1.00";
our $CVSVERSION = '$Revision: 1.3 $';

my($link) = @ARGV;

pod2usage("No link specified") unless $link;
pod2usage("$link not a symbolic link") unless -l $link;

while(-l $link) {
    $link = readlink($link);
}

$link = dirname($link) unless -d $link;

print "$link\n";

__END__

=head1 NAME

    symlinkdir - Display the directory a symlink points to

=head1 DOWNLOAD

_SRC_HERE_

=head1 SYNOPSIS

    symlinkdir

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This seemingly useless script saves considerable time if used during
command-line-browsing through directories following symlinks.

C<symlinkdir> displays the directory a symbolic link points to. If you're
in C</home/user> and there's a symbolic link C<MyModule.pm> which
points to C</home/user/projects/My/eg/MyModule.pm>, you can quickly
change to the directory the original C<MyModule.pm> file is located in
(C</home/user/projects/My/eg>) by typing

    cds MyModule.pm

given that your C<bash> or similar shell defined a function

    function cds () { cd `symlinkdir $1`; pwd; ls; }

C<symlinkdir> resolves symbolic links recursively, so if you have a link
C<dir1> pointing to C<dir2> pointing to C<dir3>, it will properly 
display C<dir2> when called on C<dir1/file>.

If the link points to a directory instead of a file, C<symlinkdir>
will display this directory instead of going an additional level up.

=head1 LEGALESE

Copyright 2002 by Mike Schilli, all rights reserved.
This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

=head1 AUTHOR

Mike Schilli E<lt>m@perlmeister.comE<gt>