.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991 Regents of the University of California. .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)stat.2 6.9 (Berkeley) 3/10/91 .\" .Dd March 10, 1991 .Dt STAT 2 .Os BSD 4 .Sh NAME .Nm stat , .Nm lstat , .Nm fstat .Nd get file status .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include .Fd #include .Ft int .Fn stat "const char *path" "struct stat *buf" .Ft int .Fn lstat "const char *path" "struct stat *buf" .Ft int .Fn fstat "int fd" "struct stat *buf" .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Fn stat function obtains information about the file pointed to by .Fa path . Read, write or execute permission of the named file is not required, but all directories listed in the path name leading to the file must be seachable. .Pp .Fn Lstat is like .Fn stat except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link, in which case .Fn lstat returns information about the link, while .Fn stat returns information about the file the link references. .Pp The .Fn fstat obtains the same information about an open file known by the file descriptor .Fa fd , such as would be obtained by an .Xr open call. .Pp .Fa Buf is a pointer to a .Fn stat structure as defined by .Aq Pa sys/stat.h (shown below) and into which information is placed concerning the file. .Bd -literal struct stat { dev_t st_dev; /* device inode resides on */ ino_t st_ino; /* inode's number */ mode_t st_mode; /* inode protection mode */ nlink_t st_nlink; /* number or hard links to the file */ uid_t st_uid; /* user-id of owner */ gid_t st_gid; /* group-id of owner */ dev_t st_rdev; /* device type, for special file inode */ off_t st_size; /* file size, in bytes */ time_t st_atime; /* time of last access */ long st_spare1; time_t st_mtime; /* time of last data modification */ long st_spare2; time_t st_ctime; /* time of last file status change */ long st_spare3; long st_blksize;/* optimal file sys I/O ops blocksize */ long st_blocks; /* blocks allocated for file */ u_long st_flags; /* user defined flags for file */ u_long st_gen; /* file generation number */ }; .Ed .Pp The time-related fields of .Fa struct stat are as follows: .Bl -tag -width st_blocks .It st_atime Time when file data last accessed. Changed by the following system calls: .Xr mknod 2 , .Xr utimes 2 , and .Xr read 2 . .It st_mtime Time when file data last modified. Changed by the following system calls: .Xr mknod 2 , .Xr utimes 2 , .Xr write 2 . .It st_ctime Time when file status was last changed (inode data modification). Changed by the following system calls: .Xr chmod 2 .Xr chown 2 , .Xr link 2 , .Xr mknod 2 , .Xr rename 2 , .Xr unlink 2 , .Xr utimes 2 , .Xr write 2 . .It st_blocks The actual number of blocks allocated for the file in 512-byte units. .El .Pp The status information word .Fa st_mode has bits: .Bd -literal #define S_IFMT 0170000 /* type of file */ #define S_IFIFO 0010000 /* named pipe (fifo) */ #define S_IFCHR 0020000 /* character special */ #define S_IFDIR 0040000 /* directory */ #define S_IFBLK 0060000 /* block special */ #define S_IFREG 0100000 /* regular */ #define S_IFLNK 0120000 /* symbolic link */ #define S_IFSOCK 0140000 /* socket */ #define S_ISUID 0004000 /* set user id on execution */ #define S_ISGID 0002000 /* set group id on execution */ #define S_ISVTX 0001000 /* save swapped text even after use */ #define S_IRUSR 0000400 /* read permission, owner */ #define S_IWUSR 0000200 /* write permission, owner */ #define S_IXUSR 0000100 /* execute/search permission, owner */ .Ed .Pp For a list of access modes, see .Aq Pa sys/stat.h , .Xr access 2 and .Xr chmod 2 . .Sh RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and .Va errno is set to indicate the error. .Sh ERRORS .Fn Stat and .Fn lstat will fail if: .Bl -tag -width ENAMETOOLONGAA .It Bq Er ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. .It Bq Er EINVAL The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. .It Bq Er ENOENT The named file does not exist. .It Bq Er EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. .It Bq Er ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. .It Bq Er EFAULT .Fa Buf or .Em name points to an invalid address. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. .El .Pp .Bl -tag -width [EFAULT] .Fn Fstat will fail if: .It Bq Er EBADF .Fa fd is not a valid open file descriptor. .It Bq Er EFAULT .Fa Buf points to an invalid address. .It Bq Er EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. .El .Sh CAVEAT The fields in the stat structure currently marked .Fa st_spare1 , .Fa st_spare2 , and .Fa st_spare3 are present in preparation for inode time stamps expanding to 64 bits. This, however, can break certain programs that depend on the time stamps being contiguous (in calls to .Xr utimes 2 ) . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr chmod 2 , .Xr chown 2 , .Xr utimes 2 .Sh BUGS Applying .Xr fstat to a socket (and thus to a pipe) returns a zero'd buffer, except for the blocksize field, and a unique device and inode number. .Sh STANDARDS The .Fn stat and .Fn fstat function calls are expected to conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-1988 .Pq Dq Tn POSIX . .Sh HISTORY A .Nm lstat function call appeared in .Bx 4.2 .