storing softlinks: Howto or workaround?

[RR]

Hi.  I need to store softlinks as part of a directory hierarchy being 
version controlled.  I know cvs isn't set up to handle them very well, 
but I've read there are ways to do it.  Now I just gzip a tarball of 
the entire directory hierarchy and archive that.  This works, but has 
several drawbacks: 

  it's checked in as a single, large, binary 
  it creates a second step on checkout 
  it makes doing a "cvs diff" useless and/or impossible 
  it creates a real error-prone nuisance on any checkin 

What can be done about this without switching away from cvs?  

Thanks!