STAT(1)                    OpenBSD Reference Manual                    STAT(1)

NAME
     stat - display file status

SYNOPSIS
     stat [-FLnq] [-f format | -l | -r | -s | -x] [-t timefmt] [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.

     The information displayed is obtained by calling lstat(2) with the given
     argument and evaluating the returned structure.  The default format dis-
     plays 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 exe-
             cutable, an at sign (@) after each symbolic link, 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 out-
             put.

     -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 example,
             times in seconds since the Epoch, etc.).

     -s      Display information in ``shell output'', suitable for initializ-
             ing 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.

   FORMATS
     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 % 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 follow-
     ing:

     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-ze-
             ro 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 deci-
             mal 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,
             unsigned decimal output, hexadecimal output, floating point out-
             put, and string output, respectively.  Some output formats do not
             apply to all fields.  Floating point output only applies to time-
             spec 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 explic-
                     itly, these four characters are prepended.

     sub     An optional sub field specifier (high, middle, low).  Only ap-
             plies to the p, d, r, and T output formats.  It can be one of the
             following:

             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, and the long output form of T.

             L       ``Low'' -- specifies the minor number for devices from r
                     or d, the ``other'' bits for permissions from the string
                     form of p, the ``user'', ``group'', and ``other'' bits
                     from the numeric forms of p, and the ls -F style output
                     character for file type when used with T (the use of L
                     for this is optional).

             M       ``Middle'' -- specifies the ``group'' bits for permis-
                     sions 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 (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).  If the
                     file system does not support birth time, the value is un-
                     defined.

             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 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 char-
                     acter 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.

     The stat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     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 mi-
     nor 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/xfs0
                 Type: Character Device
                 Major: 51
                 Minor: 0

         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

SEE ALSO
     file(1), ls(1), readlink(1), lstat(2), readlink(2), stat(2), printf(3),
     strftime(3)

HISTORY
     The stat utility first appeared in OpenBSD 3.8.

AUTHORS
     The stat utility was written by Andrew Brown <atatat@NetBSD.org>.  This
     man page was written by Jan Schaumann <jschauma@NetBSD.org>.

OpenBSD 4.7                    October 22, 2009                              5
