NAME

     stat, lstat - provide a shell interface to the stat(2)  sys-
     tem call


SYNOPSIS

     stat [-] [-fd] [-all] [-s] [-field ...]  [file1 ...]


DESCRIPTION

     Stat does little more than provide access to the  fields  in
     the struct stat as defined in the stat(2) manual page.  Each
     field that is to be listed is specified as  the  field  name
     without the leading st_.  This and the other two options are
     described below.  All options are then applied to the  files
     listed.  If stat is called as lstat then the lstat(2) system
     call is used, otherwise symbolic  links  are  expanded  with
     stat(2).

     If no fields are named then all fields are printed.   If  no
     files are listed then all open filedescriptors are printed.


OPTIONS

     -    If the first argument is ``-'', the list  of  files  is
          assumed  to come from stdin.  This is useful for things
          like ``ls | stat -uid -mtime.''  -fd If an argument  is
          a  ``-''  followed by a number then that number is used
          as  a  file  descriptor  whose  information  is  to  be
          printed.

     -all List all fields for each file.

     -s   Use lstat(2).

     -mode
          List the mode field.  Similarly  for  ino,  dev,  rdev,
          nlink,  uid, gid, size, atime, mtime, and ctime.  Under
          BSD derived systems you also have blksize and blocks.

     -Atime
     -Mtime
     -Ctime
          The lower case versions of these three options  display
          the  time  as  an  integer  that is the ``seconds since
          00:00 Jan 1. 1970.''  Listing the fields with the first
          letter  in  caps  causes  the  times  to  be printed in
          ctime(3) format (i.e., human readable).


EXAMPLES

     # Find out the number of links to each file
     $ stat -nlink *.c

     # sort files by age (much like ls -t)
     $ stat -atime * | sort +1
     # Find out which file is older in sh(1)
     if test `stat -mtime $1` -lt `stat -mtime $2`; then
          echo $1 is older than $2
     else
          echo $2 is older than $1
     fi


SEE ALSO

     stat(2).


AUTHOR

     Larry McVoy (mcvoy@rsch.wisc.edu)