topic create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target in Operating System - Linux

create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target

renarios — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:40:50 GMT

Hi all,

I'm facing an issue with symbolic links and timestamps. It is not possible to change the timestamp of a symlink, but is there any way to create a symbolic link with same timestamp as the target file?

I really hope you can help me out!

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target

Steven Schweda — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:17:28 GMT

I know nothing, but I'd expect "touch" to be
the program to use. However, Google found:

http://www.nabble.com/Touch-symlink-td4093016.html

which seemed to be discouraging.

Why do you care?

Re: create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target

renarios — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:42:32 GMT

Well, I've got a photo-gallery, which uses symlinks in a "sorted" mounpoint in stead of using the original unsorted mp.
Now all photo's in the gallery are displayed with the wrong timestamp (the timestamp of the symlinks) which is rather annoying.
I create the symlinks with a script and I'm considering using a 'date' function to change the system time before creating the link, but that's not the most beautiful solution.
I have searched for a solution before, but did not find the answer. I thought that maybe the gurus at itrc might could hand an/THE option/workaround/solution.

Cheers,

Renarios

Re: create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target

Ivan Ferreira — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:11:25 GMT

As the symlink is anhoter file, I don't think that you could have the exact timestamp unless you "touch" the file.

Maybe another option, like hard links, or loop mounting the file system may help. Â¿Have you considered an alternate solution to your requirement?

Re: create a symbolic link with same timestamp as target

renarios — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:12:15 GMT

Yes, I've considered other methods, but that would implicitly double the storage.

So I finally found a disadvantage for Linux huh?

Well, since changing the timstamp of a symbolic link isn't an option, I guess hard links are the only option to do the trick.

Does anyone have a little script for lazy me to covert all existing symbolic links to hard ones?