How did I lost my symbolic links?
 

I have a main directory containing text files (song lyrics) and a number of subdirectories under it where I created ONLY symbolic links referencing the main directory (song lists.) After doing this more than a year I noticed that somehow the symbolic links had become copies of the target file (no longer symlinks.) What could I have done to cause this?

I'm running Arch linux, bash is up to date.

Did you maybe omit the -s option?
That would have the effect you described...

No, I definitely used the -s option.

Try...
 

It may be that you ran something that copies actual file over the symb links. My advice is, first check the time stamps on the files. Did it happened on one occasion? Do they have a particular date on them, or may be two or tree? It would narrow the analysis significantly.

Do you use "exotic" keyboard layouts, or map the character codes so that the "-s" isn't truly composed with an "s"? Alternatively, using a capital "S" (caps lock...) would also have this effect

After checking the timestamps (good idea) I believe I must have extracted a tarred backup over the existing files. I had been experimenting creating the tar files with symlinks stored as symlinks, but this must have been an earlier version where the original files were stored instead. Since I lost my symlinks on the same date I created the tar, this must have been what happened.

Thanks to all.