Changing the timestamp of a symlink

Question

I know how to change the timestamp of a regular file:

touch -t 201301291810 myfile.txt

I was not able to do the same with a symlink. Is it possible?

Distro: RHEL 5.8

Answer 1

add switch -h

touch -h -t 201301291810 myfile.txt

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
  -a                     change only the access time
  -c, --no-create        do not create any files
  -d, --date=STRING      parse STRING and use it instead of current time
  -f                     (ignored)
  -h, --no-dereference   affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced
                         file (useful only on systems that can change the
                         timestamps of a symlink)
  -m                     change only the modification time
  -r, --reference=FILE   use this file's times instead of current time
  -t STAMP               use [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.ss] instead of current time

Answer 2

You may need a more recent version of touch. If this is not an option, and if you know C, you could write a small program to do it yourself using the lutimes function.

Answer 3

A brute force way is as follows:

 0. delete the old symlink you wish to change     
 1. change the system date to whatever date you want the symlink to be
 2. remake the symlink
 3. return the system date to current.