A CPAN search on 'symbolic links' found File::Spec::Link in the File::Copy::Link distro: 
perl -MFile::Spec::Link -le 'print File::Spec::Link->resolve_all(shift
+)' foo

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It returns b/foo for Tanktalus's example setup

In reply to Re^3: Following symlinks manually by davidrw
in thread Following symlinks manually by Tanktalus

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