NAME
stat,
readlink
- display file status
SYNOPSIS
stat
[-FLnq]
-l | -r |
-s | -x
[-f format |]
[-t timefmt]
[]
readlink
[-fn]
[]
DESCRIPTION
The
stat
utility displays information about the file pointed to by
file.
Read, write, or execute permissions of the named file are not required, but
all directories listed in the pathname leading to the file must be
searchable.
If no argument is given,
stat
displays information about the file descriptor for standard input.
When invoked as
readlink,
only the target of the symbolic link is printed.
If the given argument is not a symbolic link and the
-f
option is not specified,
readlink
will print nothing and exit with an error.
If the
-f
option is specified, the output is canonicalized by following every symlink
in every component of the given path recursively.
readlink
will resolve both absolute and relative paths, and return the absolute pathname
corresponding to
file.
In this case, the argument does not need to be a symbolic link.
The information displayed is obtained by calling
lstat(2)
with the given argument and evaluating the returned structure.
The default format displays the
st_dev
,
st_ino
,
st_mode
,
st_nlink
,
st_uid
,
st_gid
,
st_rdev
,
st_size
,
st_atime
,
st_mtime
,
st_ctime
,
st_blksize
,
st_blocks
,
and
st_flags
fields, in that order.
The options are as follows:
- -F
-
As in
ls(1),
display a slash
(`/')
immediately after each pathname that is a directory, an
asterisk
(`*')
after each that is executable, an at sign
(`@')
after each symbolic link, a percent sign
(`%')
after each whiteout, an equal sign
(`=')
after each socket, and a vertical bar
(`|')
after each that is a FIFO.
The use of
-F
implies
-l.
- -f format
-
Display information using the specified format.
See the
FORMATS
section for a description of valid formats.
- -L
-
Use
stat(2)
instead of
lstat(2).
The information reported by
stat
will refer to the target of
file,
if file is a symbolic link, and not to
file
itself.
- -l
-
Display output in
ls -lT
format.
- -n
-
Do not force a newline to appear at the end of each piece of output.
- -q
-
Suppress failure messages if calls to
stat(2)
or
lstat(2)
fail.
When run as
readlink,
error messages are automatically suppressed.
- -r
-
Display raw information.
That is, for all the fields in the stat-structure,
display the raw, numerical value (for example, times in seconds since the
epoch, etc.)
- -s
-
Display information in
``shell output'',
suitable for initializing variables.
- -t timefmt
-
Display timestamps using the specified format.
This format is
passed directly to
strftime(3).
- -x
-
Display information in a more verbose way as known from some Linux
distributions.
Format strings are similar to
printf(3)
formats in that they start with
%,
are then followed by a sequence of formatting characters, and end in
a character that selects the field of the struct stat which is to be
formatted.
If the
%
is immediately followed by one of
n,
t,
%,
or
@,
then a newline character, a tab character, a percent character,
or the current file number is printed, otherwise the string is
examined for the following:
Any of the following optional flags:
- #
-
Selects an alternate output form for octal and hexadecimal output.
Non-zero octal output will have a leading zero, and non-zero
hexadecimal output will have
``0x''
prepended to it.
- +
-
Asserts that a sign indicating whether a number is positive or negative
should always be printed.
Non-negative numbers are not usually printed with a sign.
- -
-
Aligns string output to the left of the field, instead of to the right.
- 0
-
Sets the fill character for left padding to the 0 character, instead of
a space.
- space
-
Reserves a space at the front of non-negative signed output fields.
A
`+'
overrides a space if both are used.
Then the following fields:
- size
-
An optional decimal digit string specifying the minimum field width.
- prec
-
An optional precision composed of a decimal point
`.'
and a decimal digit string that indicates the maximum string length,
the number of digits to appear after the decimal point in floating point
output, or the minimum number of digits to appear in numeric output.
- fmt
-
An optional output format specifier which is one of
D,
O,
U,
X,
F,
or
S.
These represent signed decimal output, octal output, unsigned decimal
output, hexadecimal output, floating point output, and string output,
respectively.
Some output formats do not apply to all fields.
Floating point output only applies to timespec fields (the
a,
m,
and
c
fields).
The special output specifier
S
may be used to indicate that the output, if
applicable, should be in string format.
May be used in combination with
- amc
-
Display date in strftime(3) format.
- dr
-
Display actual device name.
- gu
-
Display group or user name.
- p
-
Display the mode of
file
as in
ls -lTd.
- N
-
Displays the name of
file.
- T
-
Displays the type of
file.
- Y
-
Insert a `` -> '' into the output.
Note that the default output format for
Y
is a string, but if specified explicitly, these four characters are
prepended.
- sub
-
An optional sub field specifier (high, middle, or low).
Only applies to the
p,
d,
r,
T,
N,
and
z
output formats.
It can be one of the following:
- H
-
``High''
-- depending on the
datum:
- d, r
-
Major number for devices
- p
-
``User''
bits from the string form of permissions or the file
``type''
bits from the numeric forms
- T
-
The long output form of file type
- N
-
Directory path of the file, similar to what
dirname(1)
would show
- z
-
File size, rounded to the nearest gigabyte
- M
-
``Middle''
-- depending on the
datum:
- p
-
The
``group''
bits from the string form of permissions or the
``suid'',
``sgid'',
and
``sticky''
bits from the numeric forms
- z
-
File size, rounded to the nearest megabyte
- L
-
``Low''
-- depending on the
datum:
- r, d
-
Minor number for devices
- p
-
The
``other''
bits from the string form of permissions or the
``user'',
``group'',
and
``other''
bits from the numeric forms
- T
-
The
ls -F
style output character for file type (the use of
L
here is optional)
- N
-
Base filename of the file, similar to what
basename(1)
would show
- z
-
File size, rounded to the nearest kilobyte
- datum
-
A required field specifier, being one of the following:
- d
-
Device upon which
file
resides
(
st_dev
).
- i
-
file Ap s
inode number
(
st_ino
).
- p
-
File type and permissions
(
st_mode
).
- l
-
Number of hard links to
file
(
st_nlink
).
- u, g
-
User-id and group-id of
file Ap s
owner
(
st_uid
, st_gid
).
- r
-
Device number for character and block device special files
(
st_rdev
).
- a, m, c, B
-
The time
file
was last accessed or modified, or when the inode was last changed, or
the birth time of the inode
(
st_atime
, st_mtime
, st_ctime,
st_birthtime
).
- z
-
The size of
file
in bytes
(
st_size
).
- b
-
Number of blocks allocated for
file
(
st_blocks
).
- k
-
Optimal file system I/O operation block size
(
st_blksize
).
- f
-
User defined flags for
file
(
st_flags
).
- v
-
Inode generation number
(
st_gen
).
The following five field specifiers are not drawn directly from the
data in struct stat, but are:
- N
-
The name of the file.
- R
-
The absolute pathname corresponding to the file.
- T
-
The file type, either as in
ls -F
or in a more descriptive form if the sub field specifier
H
is given.
- Y
-
The target of a symbolic link.
- Z
-
Expands to
``major,minor''
from the rdev field for character or block
special devices and gives size output for all others.
Only the
%
and the field specifier are required.
Most field specifiers default to
U
as an output form, with the
exception of
p
which defaults to
O;
a, m,
and
c
which default to
D;
and
Y, T,
and
N,
which default to
S.
EXIT STATUS
stat
exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurred.
EXAMPLES
If no options are specified, the default format is
"%d %i %Sp %l %Su %Sg %r %z \"%Sa\" \"%Sm\" \"%Sc\" \"%SB\" %k %b %#Xf %N".
-
> stat /tmp/bar
0 78852 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 0 "Jul 8 10:26:03 2004" "Jul 8 10:26:03 2004" "Jul 8 10:28:13 2004" "Jan 1 09:00:00 1970" 16384 0 0 /tmp/bar
Given a symbolic link
``foo''
that points from
/tmp/foo
to
/
,
you would use
stat
as follows:
-
> stat -F /tmp/foo
lrwxrwxrwx 1 jschauma cs 1 Apr 24 16:37:28 2002 /tmp/foo@ -> /
> stat -LF /tmp/foo
drwxr-xr-x 16 root wheel 512 Apr 19 10:57:54 2002 /tmp/foo/
To initialize some shell-variables, you could use the
-s
flag as follows:
-
> csh
% eval set `stat -s .cshrc`
% echo $st_size $st_mtime
1148 1015432481
> sh
$ eval $(stat -s .profile)
$ echo $st_size $st_mtime
1148 1015432481
In order to get a list of the kind of files including files pointed to if the
file is a symbolic link, you could use the following format:
-
$ stat -f "%N: %HT%SY" /tmp/*
/tmp/bar: Symbolic Link -> /tmp/foo
/tmp/output25568: Regular File
/tmp/blah: Directory
/tmp/foo: Symbolic Link -> /
In order to get a list of the devices, their types and the major and minor
device numbers, formatted with tabs and linebreaks, you could use the
following format:
-
stat -f "Name: %N%n%tType: %HT%n%tMajor: %Hr%n%tMinor: %Lr%n%n" /dev/*
[...]
Name: /dev/wt8
Type: Block Device
Major: 3
Minor: 8
Name: /dev/zero
Type: Character Device
Major: 2
Minor: 12
In order to determine the permissions set on a file separately, you could use
the following format:
-
> stat -f "%Sp -> owner=%SHp group=%SMp other=%SLp" .
drwxr-xr-x -> owner=rwx group=r-x other=r-x
In order to determine the three files that have been modified most recently,
you could use the following format:
-
> stat -f "%m%t%Sm %N" /tmp/* | sort -rn | head -3 | cut -f2-
Apr 25 11:47:00 2002 /tmp/blah
Apr 25 10:36:34 2002 /tmp/bar
Apr 24 16:47:35 2002 /tmp/foo
SEE ALSO
basename(1),
dirname(1),
file(1),
ls(1),
lstat(2),
readlink(2),
stat(2),
printf(3),
strftime(3)
HISTORY
The
stat
utility appeared in
NetBSD1.6.
AUTHORS
The
stat
utility was written by
Andrew Brown
<atatat@NetBSD.org>.
This man page was written by
Jan Schaumann
<jschauma@NetBSD.org>.