In this case, that's a Debian "alternative", so to get more details, you could use:
$ update-alternatives --display gnome-text-editor gnome-text-editor - auto mode link best version is /usr/bin/gedit link currently points to /usr/bin/gedit link gnome-text-editor is /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor slave gnome-text-editor.1.gz is /usr/share/man/man1/gnome-text-editor.1.gz /usr/bin/gedit - priority 50 slave gnome-text-editor.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/gedit.1.gz /usr/bin/leafpad - priority 40 slave gnome-text-editor.1.gz: /usr/share/man/man1/leafpad.1.gz More generally, on Linux, you can use the namei command to know about all the symlinks involved in the resolution of a path (also mount points with -x):
$ namei -lx /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor f: /usr/bin/gnome-text-editor Drwxr-xr-x root root / drwxr-xr-x root root usr drwxr-xr-x root root bin lrwxrwxrwx root root gnome-text-editor -> /etc/alternatives/gnome-text-editor Drwxr-xr-x root root / drwxr-xr-x root root etc drwxr-xr-x root root alternatives lrwxrwxrwx root root gnome-text-editor -> /usr/bin/gedit Drwxr-xr-x root root / drwxr-xr-x root root usr drwxr-xr-x root root bin -rwxr-xr-x root root gedit