> This really isn't a bug, but it looks like there isn't a way to touch a > symbolic link.
That is generally true of BSD like systems which implement symbolic links. Actions upon symlinks pass through the symlink and act upon the target of the symlink. > If you do a > > ln -s foo.tgz foo > touch foo > > it update the date on foo.tgz. Not of which I am aware. File times are changed by the utimes(2) system call. I know of no lutimes(2) call. Perhaps others will have different information. In order to act upon the symlink special kernel routines need to be added such as lstat(2) [as opposed to stat(2)] which act upon the symlink itself. Fortunately the ower, group, and mode of a symlink are completely irrelevant to a symlink. For what purpose would one desire to change the time of a symink? > Is there a work around? The only way I know to do this on BSD like systems is to remove and recreate the symlink. [I am hoping and assuming that you won't but if you actually did that I would create one off to the side as a temporarily named object and then 'mv' it into place since rename(2) is an atomic operation. That way the symlink will always exist. Otherwise there will be a time, although small, where the symlink will appear not to exist to other programs and a race condition will be created. If you cared.] Bob _______________________________________________ Bug-fileutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-fileutils
