-.Sh SYMBOLIC LINK FOLLOWING
-Many file system traversal utilities and system calls
-have the option of traversing the file system in a physical traversal, i.e.,
-treating a symbolic link as a link rather than its target, or in a logical
-traversal, i.e., following the symbolic link whenever one is encountered.
-The following rules summarize the conventions of symbolic link following in
-utilities and system calls.
-.Pp
-The only system calls that operate on symbolic links are
-.Xr unlink 2 ,
-.Xr rename 2 ,
-.Xr lstat 2 ,
-and
-.Xr readlink 2 .
-All other system calls follow the symbolic link and operate on the object to
-which the link points to.
-.Pp
-Utilities that do not recurse over trees always
-follow symbolic links on the command line. The rest of the utilities
-.Xr (chown 1 ,
-.Xr chmod 1 ,
-.Xr chgrp 1 ,
-.Xr chflags 1 ,
-.Xr cp 1 ,
-.Xr du 1 ,
-.Xr find 1 ,
-and
-.Xr tar 1 )
-treat symbolic links in three distinct ways. The first option, the default,
-is to never follow any symbolic link. The second, specified by the
-.Fl H
-flag, causes the utility to follow symbolic links only on the command line
-but not in the tree of traversal (if recursive). The third option, specified
-by the
-.Fl h
-flag, causes the utility to follow any symbolic link encountered on the command
-line and in the tree of traversal (if recursive).
-.Pp
-The purpose of the
-.Fl H
-flag is to make the command line name space look like the logical name space,
-i.e., make all names on the command line appear as hard links, whereas the
-purpose of the
-.Fl h
-flag is to make the entire hierarchy look like the logical name space. i.e.,
-make all names in the hierarchy appear as hard links.
-.Pp
-Exceptions to these rules are the behaviors of
-.Xr rm 1 ,
-.Xr mv 1 ,
-and
-.Xr ls 1 .
-.Pp
-.Xr Rm 1
-and
-.Xr mv 1
-operate on the name, not the object it points to, and therefore always operate
-on the symbolic link itself and do not follow it.
-.Pp
-For historical reasons,
-.Xr ls 1
-follows symbolic links in the entire hierarchy (including command line)
-only when the
-.Fl L
-option is specified, and follows only on the command line only
-when neither of the
-.Fl F, d,
-or
-.Fl l
-options are specified. In all other cases,
-.Xr ls 1
-does not follow symbolic links.