NAME
stat,
readlink —
display file status
SYNOPSIS
stat |
[-FLnq]
[-f format |
-l | -r | -s |
-x] [-t
timefmt]
[file ...] |
readlink |
[-fnqsv]
[file ...] |
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_birthtime,
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. When run as readlink,
suppress error messages. This is equivalent to specifying
FMT="st_dev=%d st_ino=%i st_mode=%#p st_nlink=%l st_uid=%u st_gid=%g"
FMT="$FMT st_rdev=%r st_size=%z st_atime=%Sa st_mtime=%Sm st_ctime=%Sc"
FMT="$FMT st_birthtime=%SB st_blksize=%k st_blocks=%b st_flags=%f"
stat -t %s -f "$FMT" .
Note that if you use a timeformat that contains embedded whitespace or shell
meta-characters you will need to include appropriate quoting so the
-s output remains valid.
-
-
- -t
timefmt
- Display timestamps using the specified format. This format
is passed directly to
strftime(3) with the
extension that %f prints nanoseconds if available.
-
-
- -v
- Turn off quiet mode.
-
-
- -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 string, octal and
hexadecimal output. String output will be encoded in
vis(3) style. Non-zero octal
output will have a leading zero. 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
with the extension that %f prints nanoseconds if available.
-
-
- 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'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'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
The
stat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an
error occurs.
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
This example produces output very similar to that from
find ...
-ls (except that
find(1)
displays the time in a different format, and
find(1) sometimes adds one or more
spaces after the comma in
“
major,
minor” for
device nodes):
> stat -f "%7i %6b %-11Sp %3l %-17Su %-17Sg %9Z %Sm %N%SY" /tmp/bar
78852 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Jul 8 10:26:03 2004 /tmp/bar
> find /tmp/bar -ls -exit
78852 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Jul 8 2004 /tmp/bar
This example produces output very similar to that from
ls -lTd
(except that
ls(1) adjusts the
column spacing differently when listing multiple files, and
ls(1) adds at least one space after
the comma in
“
major,
minor” for
device nodes):
> stat -f "%-11Sp %l %Su %Sg %Z %Sm %N%SY" /tmp/bar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Jul 8 10:26:03 2004 /tmp/bar
> ls -lTd /tmp/bar
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 0 Jul 8 10:26:03 2004 /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
User names, group names, and file names that contain spaces or other special
characters may be encoded in
vis(3)
style, using the
# modifier:
> ln -s 'target with spaces' 'link with spaces'
> stat -f "%#N%#SY" 'link with spaces'
link\swith\sspaces -> target\swith\sspaces
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
NetBSD
1.6.
AUTHORS
The
stat utility was written by
Andrew
Brown ⟨atatat@NetBSD.org⟩. This man page was written by
Jan Schaumann
⟨jschauma@NetBSD.org⟩.