stat/fstat/lstat functions.

All three functions return information about a file. Please note that devices are seen as files to Unix, so you could 'stat' things like /dev/mouse to see when the mouse was last moved.

stat return the status of a file.

fstat stats an open file.

lstat reports on a link, not the file it points too.

Libraries: sys/stat.h
	   unistd.h

Syntax:    struct stat stat_p;
           stat ("martin", &stat_p);

Stat Structure:

           struct stat
           {
             dev_t         st_dev;      /* device */
             ino_t         st_ino;      /* inode */
             umode_t       st_mode;     /* protection */
             nlink_t       st_nlink;    /* number of hard links */
             uid_t         st_uid;      /* user ID of owner */
             gid_t         st_gid;      /* group ID of owner */
             dev_t         st_rdev;     /* device type (if inode device) */
             off_t         st_size;     /* total size, in bytes */
             unsigned long st_blksize;  /* blocksize for filesystem I/O */
             unsigned long st_blocks;   /* number of blocks allocated */
             time_t        st_atime;    /* time of last access */
             time_t        st_mtime;    /* time of last modification */
             time_t        st_ctime;    /* time of last change */
           };

	S_ISLNK(st_mode)  is it a symbolic link

        S_ISREG(st_mode)  regular file

        S_ISDIR(st_mode)  directory

        S_ISCHR(st_mode)  character device

        S_ISBLK(st_mode)  block device

        S_ISFIFO(st_mode) fifo

        S_ISSOCK(st_mode) socket	

man page to provide all the details.

Examples

See also:

Note