Docs on setting the modification date

The documentation

https://5.docs.plone.org/develop/plone/content/timestamps.html#setting-modification-date-explicitly

is in general right but in reality it is wrong.

You usually need to call reindexObject() for object updates. And reindexObject() implicitly triggers an update of the modification_date property with the current timestamp. So it seems to be impossible to explicitly set the modification date.

  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.component-3.12.1-py2.7.egg/zope/component/_api.py(136)subscribers()
-> return sitemanager.subscribers(objects, interface)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.interface-4.2.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/zope/interface/registry.py(328)subscribers()
-> return self.adapters.subscribers(objects, provided)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.interface-4.2.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/zope/interface/adapter.py(596)subscribers()
-> subscription(*objects)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.component-3.12.1-py2.7.egg/zope/component/event.py(32)objectEventNotify()
-> zope.component.subscribers((event.object, event), None)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.component-3.12.1-py2.7.egg/zope/component/_api.py(136)subscribers()
-> return sitemanager.subscribers(objects, interface)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.interface-4.2.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/zope/interface/registry.py(328)subscribers()
-> return self.adapters.subscribers(objects, provided)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/zope.interface-4.2.0-py2.7-linux-x86_64.egg/zope/interface/adapter.py(596)subscribers()
-> subscription(*objects)
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/plone.dexterity-2.5.1-py2.7.egg/plone/dexterity/content.py(784)reindexOnModify()
-> content.reindexObject()
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/Products.CMFCore-2.2.11-py2.7.egg/Products/CMFCore/CMFCatalogAware.py(85)reindexObject()
-> self.notifyModified()
  /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/plone.dexterity-2.5.1-py2.7.egg/plone/dexterity/content.py(381)notifyModified()
-> self.setModificationDate()
> /home/vmadmin/share-migration/eggs/plone.dexterity-2.5.1-py2.7.egg/plone/dexterity/content.py(405)setModificationDate()
-> self.modification_date = DateTime()

Start with the linked timestamps documentation and compare its instructions with the reported reindexObject() and setModificationDate() call stack. Verify the documented behavior around explicit modification dates, then update the page so it accurately describes the supported procedure and limitations; the issue is done when the documentation matches the observed Plone behavior.