Manual Pages  — STAT

The information displayed is obtained by calling lstat(2) with the given argument and evaluating the returned structure. The default format displays the st_dev, st_ino, st_mode, st_nlink, st_uid, st_gid, st_rdev, st_size, st_atime, st_mtime, st_ctime, st_birthtime, 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 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.
-H
	Treat each argument as the hexadecimal representation of an NFS file handle, and use fhstat(2) instead of lstat(2). This requires root privileges.
-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. If the link is broken or the target does not exist, fall back on lstat(2) and report information about the link.
-n
	Do not force a newline to appear at the end of each piece of output.
-q
	Suppress failure messages if calls to stat(2) or lstat(2) fail. When run as readlink, error messages are automatically suppressed.
-f format
	Display information using the specified format. See the Formats section for a description of valid formats.
-l
	Display output in ls 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" format, suitable for initializing 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 as known from some Linux distributions.

Any of the following optional flags:

#	Selects an alternate output form for octal and hexadecimal output. 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 ' amp;.' and a decimal 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 output, 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.
f	Display the flags of file as in ls.
gu	Display group or user name.
p	Display the mode of file as in ls.
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 explicitly, these four characters are prepended.

sub	An optional sub field specifier (high, middle, low). Only applies to the p, d, r, and T output formats. It can be one of the following:
H	"High" [em] 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" [em] 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 style output character for file type when used with T (the use of L for this is optional).
M	"Middle" [em] specifies the "group" bits for permissions 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).
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.
v	Inode generation number (st_gen).

The following five field specifiers are not drawn directly from the data in struct stat, but are:

N	The name of the file.
R	The absolute pathname corresponding to the file.
T	The file type, either as in ls or in a more descriptive 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 character 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.