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readlink(1)

NAME

     stat, readlink -- display file status

SYNOPSIS

     stat [-FLnq] [-f format | -l | -r | -s | -x] [-t timefmt] [file ...]
     readlink [-n] [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 path name leading to the file must be
     searchable.  If no argument is given, stat displays information about the
     file descriptor for standard input.

     When invoked as readlink, only the target of the symbolic link is
     printed.  If the given argument is not a symbolic link, readlink will
     print nothing and exit with an error.

     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(1), display a slash (`/') immediately after each path-
	     name 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.

     -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.

     -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.
	     When run as readlink, error messages are automatically sup-
	     pressed.

     -f format
	     Display information using the specified format.  See the FORMATS
	     section for a description of valid formats.

     -l      Display output in ls -lT format.

     -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.

     -x      Display information in a more verbose way as known from some
	     Linux distributions.

     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-
	     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,
	     instead 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
	     numeric 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
	     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.

	     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.

	     i	     file's inode number.

	     p	     File type and permissions.

	     l	     Number of hard links to file.

	     u, g    User ID and group ID of file's 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 file system 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 char-
		     acter or block special devices and gives size output for
		     all others.

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_mtimespec
	   1148 1015432481

	   > sh
	   $ eval $(stat -s .profile)
	   $ echo $st_size $st_mtimespec
	   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
     recently, you could use the following format:

	   > stat -f "%m%t%Sm %N" /tmp/* | sort -rn | head -3 | cut -f2-
     The stat utility appeared in NetBSD 1.6.

AUTHORS

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

FreeBSD 5.4			  May 8, 2003			   FreeBSD 5.4

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