title: Python 2.7.3: Copying symlinks, but don't follow
body: <p>I'm using Python 2.7.3. I'm working on a Python script to copy parts of a directory tree from one location to another. Some of the files that need to be copied are symlinks.</p>
  
  <p>How can I use Python to copy symlinks from location to another without following them? (I just want it to blindly copy them just like they are 'regular' files)</p>
  
  <p>I found that <code>shutil.copy()</code> for Python 3.3 supports the argument <code>follow_symlinks=False</code>, yet older versions of shutil doesn't.</p>
  
  <p>EDIT: More details:</p>
  
  <p>The purpose of this script is to take all files from a specified location and split them up into individual archives. I know I could do this by zipping up the entire directory and splitting the archive, but I need to have the capability of extracting each archive individually without rejoining into one large archive. Also, each archive must be less than a specified size.</p>
  
  <p>Basic approach:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Get all absolute paths to all files of source directory</li>
  <li>Get all sizes of all files</li>
  <li>Sort all files (regardless of location) by size</li>
  <li>Copy files from location X to tmp location (until sum of copied files is &lt;= to max archive size)</li>
  <li>Create archive of tmp</li>
  <li>Clean tmp location</li>
  <li>Go back to 4 while there are still files to copy</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.</p>