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NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

The function obtains information about the file pointed to by 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 searchable. is like except in the case where the named file is a symbolic link, in which case returns information about the link, while returns information about the file the link references. Unlike other filesystem objects, symbolic links do not have an owner, group, access mode, times, etc. Instead, these attributes are taken from the directory that contains the link. The only attributes returned from an that refer to the symbolic link itself are the file type (S_IFLNK), size, blocks, and link count (always 1). The obtains the same information about an open file known by the file descriptor The argument is a pointer to a structure as defined by (shown below) and into which information is placed concerning the file. 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 */
struct timespec st_atimespec; /* time of last access */
struct timespec st_mtimespec; /* time of last data modification */
struct timespec st_ctimespec; /* time of last file status change */
off_t st_size; /* file size, in bytes */
quad_t st_blocks; /* blocks allocated for file */
u_long st_blksize;/* optimal file sys I/O ops blocksize */
u_long st_flags; /* user defined flags for file */
u_long st_gen; /* file generation number */
}; The time-related fields of are as follows: Time when file data last accessed. Changed by the and system calls. Time when file data last modified. Changed by the and system calls. Time when file status was last changed (inode data modification). Changed by the and system calls. The size-related fields of the are as follows: The optimal I/O block size for the file. The actual number of blocks allocated for the file in 512-byte units. As short symbolic links are stored in the inode, this number may be zero. The status information word has the following bits: #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 */ For a list of access modes, see and

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and is set to indicate the error.

COMPATIBILITY

Previous versions of the system used different types for the and fields.

ERRORS

and will fail if: A component of the path prefix is not a directory. A component of a pathname exceeded characters, or an entire path name exceeded characters. The named file does not exist. Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. or points to an invalid address. An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. will fail if: is not a valid open file descriptor. points to an invalid address. An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

CAVEAT

The fields in the stat structure currently marked and 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

SEE ALSO

BUGS

Applying 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.

STANDARDS

The and function calls are expected to conform to

HISTORY

A function call appeared in


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