MirBSD manpage: stat(1)
STAT(1) BSD Reference Manual STAT(1)
stat - display file status
stat [-FLnq] [-f format | -l | -r | -s | -x] [-t timefmt] [file ...]
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 path name leading to the file must be
searchable. If no argument is given, stat displays information about the
file descriptor for standard input.
The information displayed is obtained by calling lstat(2) with the given
argument and evaluating the returned structure.
The options are as follows:
-F As in ls, 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 sym-
bolic 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.
-r Display raw information. That is, for all the fields in the
stat-structure, display the raw, numerical value (for exam-
ple, times in seconds since the epoch, etc.)
-s Display information in "shell output", suitable for ini-
tializing 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 for-
matted. If the % if immediately followed by a slash ('/') and two hexade-
cimal digits, the corresponding octet is output; if it is immediately
followed by one of n, t, %, or @, then a newline character, a tab charac-
ter, a percent character, or the current file number is printed, other-
wise the string is examined for the following:
Any of the following optional flags:
# Selects an alternate output form for octal and hexadecimal out-
put. 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, in-
stead 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 de-
cimal 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 numer-
ic 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, un-
signed 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 expli-
citly, these four characters are prepended.
sub An optional sub field specifier (high, middle, low). Only applies
to the p, d, r, and T output formats. It can be one of the fol-
lowing:
H "High" -- specifies the major number for devices from r
or d, the "user" bits for permissions from the string
form of p, the file "type" bits from the numeric forms of
p, the long output form of T, and the directory path from
the N output similar to what dirname(1) would show.
L "Low" -- specifies the minor number for devices from r or
d, the "other" bits for permissions from the string form
of p, the nanosecond part of the timestamp for a, m, c,
B, the "user", "group", and "other" bits from the numeric
forms of p, the ls -F style output character for file
type when used with T (the use of L for this is option-
al), and the filename component of the N output form
similar to what basename(1) would display.
M "Middle" -- specifies the "group" bits for permissions
from the string output form of p, or the "suid", "sgid",
and "sticky" bits for the numeric forms of p.
datum A required field specifier, being one of the following:
d Device upon which file resides.
i files inode number.
p File type and permissions.
l Number of hard links to file.
u, g
User-id and group-id of files owner.
r Device number for character and block device special files.
a, m, c, B
The time file was last accessed or modified, of when the
inode was last changed, or the birth time of the inode.
z The size of file in bytes.
b Number of blocks allocated for file.
k Optimal filesystem I/O operation block size.
f User defined flags for file.
v Inode generation number.
The following four field specifiers are not drawn directly from
the data in struct stat, but are
N The name of the file.
T The file type, either as in ls -F or in a more descrip-
tive 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 charac-
ter 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.
stat exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurred.
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 re-
cently, 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
file(1), basename(1), dirname(1), ls(1), lstat(2), readlink(1),
readlink(2), stat(2), printf(3), strftime(3)
The stat utility appeared in NetBSD 1.6 and was ported to MirBSD #8. The
"%/00" output format specifier was added in MirBSD #11.
The stat utility was written by Andrew Brown <atatat@NetBSD.org>. This
man page was written by Jan Schaumann <jschauma@NetBSD.org>.
MirBSD #10-current August 7, 2017 4