Is there a way to edit a symbolic link without deleting it first?

Question

So I created a symbolic link:

ln -s /location/to/link linkname

Now I want to change the location that the symlink links to. How do I do that? Is there a way to do it without deleting it first?

Answer 1

You could create the new link with a different name, then move it to replace the old link.

ln -s /location/to/link linkname

Later

ln -s /location/to/link2 newlink
mv newlink linkname

If newlink and linkname are on the same physical device the mv should be atomic.