Hi,

I am trying to duplicate a symbolic link, the new link should be the exact replica of the original one, with same file attributes, permissions, owner, group and even the time.

i m successful in changing the owner and group, but when i try to change the time using utime, the time of the file which is pointed to by this link get updated.

for example, there is file1 and file1_link is a symbolic link to file1. something like this:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 avni avni 5 Feb 27 11:44 file1_link -> file1
-rw-rw-rw- 1 avni avni 2061 Feb 26 18:47 file1

now i have to duplicate file1_link so that i have

lrwxrwxrwx 1 avni avni 5 Feb 27 11:44 file1_link_dup -> file1

but instead i get
lrwxrwxrwx 1 avni avni 5 Feb 28 11:30 file1_link_dup -> file1

when is do utime for file1_link_dup the result is something like this:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 avni avni 5 Feb 27 11:44 file1_link -> file1
-rw-rw-rw- 1 avni avni 2061 Feb 27 11:44 file1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 avni avni 5 Feb 28 11:30 file1_link_dup -> file1

can any body tell how this can be achieved.
I read about lutimes, but its not on my system.


I am new to UNIX and hence have little knowledge of the various distributions and commands available.


Thanks in advance.