----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# os.path.abspath() versus os.path.realpath() [latter dereferences links]

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1$ ls -l 
total 32
drwxr-xr-x  3 blue  wheel  102 Jan 28 17:40 dir
lrwxr-xr-x  1 blue  wheel    3 Feb  9 06:43 dirlink -> dir
-rw-r--r--  1 blue  wheel    5 Jan 28 17:32 file
lrwxr-xr-x  1 blue  wheel    4 Feb  9 06:43 filelink -> file
lrwxr-xr-x  1 blue  wheel   14 Feb  9 06:43 nestedfilelink -> dir/nestedfile

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1$ py3
>>> import os
>>> for item in ('file', 'dir', 'filelink', 'dirlink', 'nestedfilelink'):
...     print()
...     print(os.path.abspath(item))
...     print(os.path.realpath(item))
... 

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/file
/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/file

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/dir
/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/dir

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/filelink
/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/file

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/dirlink
/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/dir

/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/nestedfilelink
/MY-STUFF/Code/mergeall/test/ziptools/test-symlinks/test1/dir/nestedfile