stat function

C

Function

Reference manual

@see struct stat

The stat function retrieves information about a file or symbolic link and stores it in a structure pointed to by the struct stat pointer provided as an argument.

Syntax

#include <sys/stat.h>

int stat(
    const char *restrict pathname,
    struct stat *restrict statbuf
);

Parameters

• pathname: A pointer to a null-terminated string containing the path of the file or symbolic link whose information is to be retrieved.

• statbuf: A pointer to a struct stat variable where the retrieved file information will be stored.

Return value

• If the operation is successful, the function returns 0.

• If an error occurs, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.

Usage example

In the following example we use the stat function to retrieve information about a file. Note that to print the file permissions you can perform a binary and between the file_info.st_mode variable and the value 0777.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

int main(void)
{
    const char *file_path = "example.txt";
    struct stat file_info;

    if (stat(file_path, &file_info) == -1)
    {
        perror("Failed to retieve file information");
        return (EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    printf("File size: %lld bytes\n", (long long)file_info.st_size);
    printf("File permissions: %o\n", file_info.st_mode & 0777);
    return (EXIT_SUCCESS);
}