using utimes(2) to change the time

[Robert Elz]

In article <1139 at umcp-cs.UUCP>, chris at umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) writes:
> Once again: the owner, mode, and times of a symbolic link are never
> used by anything in the kernel, so changing them is pointless anyway.

Almost.  The owner is used to account for the space (1 block)
used by the symbolic link in disc quota calculations.  You
can chown() symbolic links to alter who is charged this way.

Apart from that, symbolic links are intended (as much as
is possible) to emulate real links, chmod(), utimes() etc
all alter the file linked to, just as if it was a hard link.

Robert Elz			ucbvax!kre kre at monet.berkeley.edu