david kramer writes:
> How about
>     -h, --dereference
>           don't dump symlinks; dump the files they point to

actually, i don't want to dump the files themselves, but keep
the symlinks.  there is some permissions issue which doesn't
keep the symlinks but substitutes a zero-sized file for each
symlink.  when i do the tar/untar as root, the symlinks are
retained.

dan moylan