STAT

Section: MINTLIB LIBRARY FUNCTIONS (3)
Updated: 3 March 1993
Index Return to Main Contents

NAME

stat, lstat, fstat - get file status

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int stat(const char *path, struct stat *buf);

int lstat(const char *path, struct stat *buf);

int fstat(int fd, struct stat *buf);

DESCRIPTION

stat obtains information about the file named by 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 searchable. lstat is like stat except in the cases where the named file is a symbolic link, in which case lstat returns information about the link, while stat returns information about the file the link references. fstat obtains the same information about an open file referenced by the the file descriptor, such as would be returned by an creat, open, dup, fcntl or pipe call. buf is a pointer to a stat structure into which information is placed concerning the file. The stat structure is defined in <sys/stat.h> and contains the following fields of interest:

  struct stat
  {
    u_short st_mode;    /* file mode                          */
    ino_t   st_ino;     /* the file serial number             */
    dev_t   st_dev;     /* device file resides on             */
    short   st_rdev;    /* the device identifier              */
    short   st_nlink;   /* number of hard links to the file   */
    uid_t   st_uid;     /* user ID of the owner               */
    gid_t   st_gid;     /* group ID of the owner              */
    off_t   st_size;    /* total size of the file, in bytes   */
    off_t   st_blksize; /* preferred blocksize for system I/O */
    off_t   st_blocks;  /* actual number of blocks allocated  */
    time_t  st_mtime;   /* file last modify time              */
    time_t  st_atime;   /* file last access time              */
    time_t  st_ctime;   /* file last status change time       */
    short   st_attr;    /* file attributes                    */
    ...                 /* various fields reserved for MiNT   */
  }; The following masks are available in <sys/stat.h> to test the st_mode field in the stat structure:

  #define S_IFMT    0170000   /* type of file         */
  #define S_IFCHR   0020000   /* character special    */
  #define S_IFDIR   0040000   /* directory            */
  #define S_IFBLK   0060000   /* block special        */
  #define S_IFREG   0100000   /* regular file         */
  #define S_IFIFO   0120000   /* FIFO special         */
  #define S_IMEM    0140000   /* shared memory (?)    */
  #define S_IFLNK   0160000   /* symbolic link        */
  #define S_ISUID   04000     /* set-uid on execution */
  #define S_ISGID   02000     /* set-gid on execution */
  #define S_ISVTX   01000     /* save swapped text    */ The following masks are available in <sys/stat.h> to test the st_attr field in the stat structure:

  #define S_IRUSR   0400      /* readable by user     */
  #define S_IWUSR   0200      /* writeable by user    */
  #define S_IXUSR   0100      /* executable by user   */
  #define S_IRGRP   0040      /* readable by group    */
  #define S_IWGRP   0020      /* writable by group    */
  #define S_IXGRP   0010      /* executable by group  */
  #define S_IROTH   0004      /* readable by others   */
  #define S_IWOTH   0002      /* writable by others   */
  #define S_IXOTH   0001      /* executable by others */

RETURN VALUES

0 on success. -1 on failure; errno is set to indicate the error.

NOTE

When MiNT is not active, these calls are emulated under TOS. The TOS implemenation of fstat in particular is pretty bogus. You are advised to read the source code of stat.c if you want to make use of other than the most basic attributes under TOS emulation.

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 11:15:07 GMT, June 22, 2025