stat - obtain file size and attributes

SYNOPSIS

<stat [options] $path[ /]> [</stat>]

DESCRIPTION
The stat function obtains information about file(s). It combines functionality from the Unix utilities ls, stat() and find. For each file named in the $path argument (plus others, depending on options below), the following variables are set in parallel:

• $ret (string) The file path. This is usually a value from the $path argument, but if GLOB or MAXDEPTH is set, new paths may be returned.

• $ret.err (string) The error from stat() for this file, or empty if no error. Thus, if the file named by $path does not exist, $ret.err will be non-empty. Note that it is possible for errors to occur on files not specified in the original $path list, if GLOB or MAXDEPTH is set. If $ret.err is non-empty, any variables derived from a stat() call (e.g. $ret.size) will also be unset, empty or 0.

• $ret.depth (long) The number of directories traversed from an original $path argument to this file, excluding any initial filename globbing. Top-level paths will thus have a depth of 0.

• $ret.symlink (string) The raw target of the symlink. For non-symlink files and platforms that do not support symbolic links, this is empty.

• $ret.sympath (string) The target of a symlink, as a corrected path from the top-level $path argument. For non-symlink files and platforms that do not support symbolic links, this is empty.

• $ret.size (long, int64 or double) The size of the file, in bytes. On systems where filesizes can exceed the size of a long (e.g. Solaris 2.6/2.7/2.8), the value is returned as an int64 (version 5 and earlier returned double).

• $ret.owner (string) The owner of the file.

• $ret.group (string) The group of the file.

• $ret.isrd (long) 1 if the file is readable with current permissions, 0 if not.

• $ret.iswr (long) 1 if the file is writable with current permissions, 0 if not.

• $ret.isex (long) 1 if the file is executable with current permissions, 0 if not.

• $ret.mode (string) Type and permissions of the file, as a 10-character symbolic string ala Unix ls. The first character denotes the type of file: "d" for a directory, "-" for a regular file, "b" for a block device, "c" for a character device, "p" for a FIFO or pipe, "l" for a symlink, "s" for a socket. The next 3 characters are "r", "w" and "x" respectively, to indicate read, write and execute permission for the file owner, or "-" to indicate the permission is not given.

  Under Unix, the next 3 characters are the same, for the group. The last three are the same, for others. The user execute bit may be "s" if the set-uid bit is also set, or "S" if the set-uid bit is set without execute. The group execute bit may be "s" if the set-gid bit is also set, or "S" if the set-gid bit is set without execute. The other execute bit may be "t" if the save-text (sticky) bit is also set, or "T" if the bit is set without execute.

• $ret.attrib (string) List of file attributes of the file, as a comma-separated list of zero or more of the following tokens: readonly, hidden, system, volumelabel, directory, archive, device, normal, temporary, sparsefile, reparsepoint, compressed, offline, notcontentindexed, encrypted. This is a Windows-specific return value: on other OSes, $ret.attrib may be emulated to a limited extent (e.g. under Unix readonly is set if the file is not writable), and $ret.mode contains more details. Added in version 5.01.1245200000 20090616.

• $ret.atime (date) The last-access time of the file, which is generally the last time a process read from the file.

• $ret.mtime (date) The last-modify time of the file.

• $ret.ctime (date) The last-change time of the file, i.e. the last time its attributes were changed.

• $ret.nlinks (long) The number of hard links to the files (if the filesystem/platform supports it).

• $ret.devtype (long) The device type the file is on (if the filesystem/platform supports it).

• $ret.dev (long) Under Unix, the device major and minor number (combined). Under Windows, this usually indicates what drive the file is on: 0 for A:, 1 for B:, etc. (For UNC paths this may be the drive that the process is on, not the file; this is apparently a limitation of the Windows stat() implementation.)

• $ret.ino (long) The inode of the file (if the filesystem/platform supports it).

• $ret.blks (long) The number of blocks consumed by the file, if the filesystem/platform supports it.

• $ret.blksize (long) The preferred block size for file transfers on the device, if the filesystem/platform supports it.

The ending </stat> tag is optional: if present, the function becomes a looping block statement, with the return variables looped over and any statements inside the block executed for each iteration; $loop and $next are also set then. <BREAK> (here) may be used to exit the loop.

The following options may be set before the $path argument:

• ROW

  Do not accumulate return variables into arrays, and do not enter a loop context for them; each iteration's values will replace the previous. This option is recommended if the return values are not needed in future iterations; it saves memory.

• SKIP=n Skip the first n return values. For example, to list just the contents of a single directory, SKIP=1 with MAXDEPTH=1 will skip the initial value (the directory itself).

• MAX=n Return at most n values, after SKIP, globbing and recursion if any.

• MAXDEPTH=n Descend at most n directories deep from the top-level $path argument values (after globbing). The default is 0, i.e. do not descend directories. A negative value indicates no limit.

• NAME=wildcard Only return files whose name (not path) matches the wildcard specification. Similar to the -name option to the Unix find utility.

• ALL Return all entries from a traversed directory; do not skip "." and "..".

• SAMEDEV Stay on the same device as the current $path argument; do not cross filesystems when traversing directories if MAXDEPTH specified. Same as the -xdev or -mount option to the Unix find utility. May not work correctly under Windows.

• DEPTHFIRST When traversing directories (if MAXDEPTH set), return a directory's contents before the directory name itself. The default is to return the directory name before returning its contents.

• SYMLINK Return information about symlinks, not the files they point to; i.e. use lstat() instead of stat(). This does not affect the value of $ret.symlink or $ret.sympath, nor the traversal of directories (see FOLLOWSYM set); it will affect other stat()-dependent variables such as $ret.mode however.

• FOLLOWSYM Follow symbolic links that point to directories when traversing for MAXDEPTH; the default is not to. Note: this can cause the same directory tree to be traversed many times, e.g. if a symbolic link points to an upper-level directory.

• GLOB Do shell-style file globbing: expand wildcards ("*" and "?") in the original $path argument's values, and return values for the resulting paths. The expanded values for a given $path wildcard are sorted ascending by name. Without this flag, wildcard characters have no special meaning and are interpreted literally.

• SORT=method Sort the contents of each directory traversed (via MAXDEPTH) by method, which defaults to "name". The possible values are "none", "name", "size", "atime", "mtime" or "ctime". Note that each traversed directory is sorted individually, not the entire result set.

• ASC Sort each descended directory's files in ascending order (the default).

• DESC Sort each descended directory's files in descending order.

DIAGNOSTICS
stat returns the file path in $ret, plus various other $ret.... variables as listed above. If the looping syntax is used (a closing </stat> tag), $loop and $next are set as well as the other variables.

EXAMPLE

<stat /very/important/file>
<IF $ret.err neq "">
  The file does not exist! ($ret.err)
</IF>
...

Contents of directory $dir:

<stat ROW MAXDEPTH=1 SKIP=1 ALL $dir>
  <fmt "%s %8s %8s %10kd %at %s\n"
    $ret.mode $ret.owner $ret.group
    $ret.size "%b %d %Y" $ret.mtime $ret>
</stat>

The top part of this example checks for the existence of a file, and reports if it cannot be found. The bottom part of the example emulates an ls or dir of the directory $dir, and prints out some information on the files contained therein: setting MAXDEPTH to 1 ensures the directory contents are returned as well, SKIP=1 skips the directory name itself, and ALL ensures that "." and ".." are returned too.

CAVEATS
The stat function was added in version 3.01.982000000 20010212.

Certain return variables are platform-dependent, such as $ret.dev, $ret.symlink and $ret.sympath.

Using the FOLLOWSYM option can cause repetitive, copious and useless return values if symbolic links point to directories, as the resulting filesystem loop will be followed.

SEE ALSO
sysutil, read, WRITE