NAME

       "File::lchown" - modify attributes of symlinks without dereferencing them

SYNOPSIS

        use File::lchown qw( lchown lutimes );

        lchown $uid, $gid, $linkpath or die "Cannot lchown() - $!";

        lutimes $atime, $mtime, $linkpath or die "Cannot lutimes() - $!";

DESCRIPTION

       The regular "chown" system call will dereference a symlink and apply ownership changes to
       the file at which it points. Some OSes provide system calls that do not dereference a
       symlink but instead apply their changes directly to the named path, even if that path is a
       symlink (in much the same way that "lstat" will return attributes of a symlink rather than
       the file at which it points).

FUNCTIONS

   $count = lchown $uid, $gid, @paths
       Set the new user or group ownership of the specified paths, without dereferencing any
       symlinks. Passing the value "-1" as either the $uid or $gid will leave that attribute
       unchanged. Returns the number of files successfully changed.

   $count = lutimes $atime, $mtime, @paths
       Set the access and modification times on the specified paths, without dereferencing any
       symlinks. Passing "undef" as both $atime and $mtime will update the times to the current
       system time.

       Note that for both "lchown" and "lutimes", if more than one path is given, if later paths
       succeed after earlier failures, then the value of $! will not be reliable to indicate the
       nature of the failure. If you wish to use $! to report on failures, make sure only to pass
       one path at a time.

TODO

       •   Implement sub-second precision on "lutimes", most likely by taking floats or two-
           element ARRAY refs, similar to "Time::HiRes" uses.

SEE ALSO

       •   lchown(2) - change ownership of a file

       •   lutimes(2) - change file timestamps

AUTHOR

       Paul Evans <leonerd@leonerd.org.uk>