[NTLUG:Discuss] changing timestamp on symbolic link?

[Lance Simmons]

Thanks to everyone for responding, even though the news was bad.

On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 09:06:55AM -0600, MadHat wrote:

> A symlink is just a pointer to a file and will have its own set of
> timestamps.  By default ls will show modification time, and you can
> only modify a symlink, as far as I know, by deleting it and recreating
> it or by using the -f, like 'ln -sf this that', which effectively
> deletes it first anyway.

I glean from googling and from everyone's responses here that yours is
basically the right answer.  One message I found in a newsgroup
commented that the people who wrote the code for links didn't envision a
use for the link's timestamp, so they didn't bother making it easy to
modify it.  I'm no programmer, but I'm tinkering away here at home, and
most certainly have a use for being able to modify a link's timestamp.
In fact, it's turned into a bit of a roadblock.

Later today I'll write up an explanation of why I (think I) need the
ability to modify the timestamp on links.  Maybe one of you will have
some suggestions for how I can make do without it.

-- 
 .~.
 /V\   Lance Simmons
/( )\  lance at lsimmons.net
^^-^^
"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
statues that are in all the other museums."
		-- Steven Wright