Open System Services System Calls Reference Manual (G06.25+, H06.03+)

System Functions (s and S) stat(2)
NAME
stat - Provides information about a file
LIBRARY
G-series native Guardian processes: system library
G-series native OSS processes: system library
H-series native Guardian processes: implicit libraries
H-series OSS processes: implicit libraries
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h> /* optional except for POSIX.1 */
#include <sys/stat.h>
int stat(
const char *path,
struct stat *buffer);
PARAMETERS
path Points to the pathname identifying the file.
buffer Points to a stat structure, into which information is placed about
the file. The stat structure is described in the sys/stat.h header
file.
DESCRIPTION
The stat() function obtains information about the file whose name is pointed to by the path
parameter. Read, write, or execute permission for the named file is not required, but all direc-
tories listed in the pathname leading to the file must be searchable.
The file information is written to the area specified by the buffer parameter, which is a pointer to
a stat structure with this definition from the sys/stat.h header file:
struct stat {
dev_t st_dev;
ino_t st_ino;
mode_t st_mode;
nlink_t st_nlink;
char filler_1[2];
uid_t st_uid;
gid_t st_gid;
char filler_2[4];
dev_t st_rdev;
off_t st_size;
time_t st_atime;
time_t st_mtime;
time_t st_ctime;
int64_t reserved[3];
};
For a regular file, the stat() function sets the st_size field of the stat structure to the length of the
file and sets the st_mode field to indicate the file type. For a symbolic link, the stat() function
returns information about the file at the end of the link; no information about the link is returned
(use the lstat() function for information about the link).
The stat() function updates any time-related fields associated with the file before writing into the
stat structure, unless it is a read-only fileset. Time-related fields are not updated for read-only
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