A Python script to check for broken symlinks in the current working directory. I use this as part of a pre-commit hook with git.

detect-broken-symlinks.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
""" Recursively walk the current working directory looking for broken
symlinks. If any broken symlinks are found print out a report and exit
with status 1. If none are found print out OK and exit with status 0.

"""
import sys
import os
print('Checking for broken symlinks...', end='')

links = []
broken = []
for root, dirs, files in os.walk('.'):
    if root.startswith('./.git'):
        # Ignore the .git directory.
        continue
    for filename in files:
        path = os.path.join(root,filename)
        if os.path.islink(path):
            target_path = os.readlink(path)
            # Resolve relative symlinks
            if not os.path.isabs(target_path):
                target_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(path),target_path)
            if not os.path.exists(target_path):
                broken.append(path)
            links.append(path)
        else:
            # If it's not a symlink we're not interested.
            continue

print('{} symlinks found...'.format(len(links)), end='')
if len(broken) == 0:
    print('OK')
    sys.exit(0)
else:
    print('broken symlink(s) found: {}'.format('\n'.join(broken)))
    sys.exit(1)