Linux stat command
On Unix-like operating systems, the stat command displays the detailed status of a particular file or a file system.
This page describes the GNU/Linux version of stat.
Syntax
stat [OPTION]... FILE...
Options
| -f, --filesystem | display filesystem status instead of file status |
| -c, --format=FORMAT | use the specified FORMAT instead of the default |
| -L, --dereference | follow links |
| -Z, --context | print the SELinux security context |
| -t, --terse | print the information in terse form |
| --help | display this help and exit |
| --version | output version information and exit |
The valid format sequences for files (without --filesystem):
| %A | Access rights in human readable form |
| %a | Access rights in octal |
| %B | The size in bytes of each block reported by '%b' |
| %b | Number of blocks allocated (see %B) |
| %C | SELinux security context string |
| %D | Device number in hex |
| %d | Device number in decimal |
| %F | File type |
| %f | Raw mode in hex |
| %G | Group name of owner |
| %g | Group ID of owner |
| %h | Number of hard links |
| %i | Inode number |
| %N | Quoted File name with dereference if symbolic link |
| %n | File name |
| %o | IO block size |
| %s | Total size, in bytes |
| %T | Minor device type in hex |
| %t | Major device type in hex |
| %U | Username of owner |
| %u | User ID of owner |
| %X | Time of last access as seconds since Epoch |
| %x | Time of last access |
| %Y | Time of last modification as seconds since Epoch |
| %y | Time of last modification |
| %Z | Time of last change as seconds since Epoch |
| %z | Time of last change |
Valid format sequences for file systems:
| %a | Free blocks available to non-superuser |
| %b | Total data blocks in file system |
| %c | Total file nodes in file system |
| %C | SELinux security context string |
| %d | Free file nodes in file system |
| %f | Free blocks in file system |
| %i | File System id in hex |
| %l | Maximum length of file names |
| %n | File name |
| %s | Optimal transfer block size |
| %T | Type in human readable form |
| %t | Type in hex |
Examples
stat index.htm
Reports the status of file index.htm, displaying results similar to the following output:
File: `index.htm' Size: 17137 Blocks: 40 IO Block: 8192 regular file Device: 8h/8d Inode: 23161443 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: (17433/comphope) Gid: ( 32/ www) Access: 2007-04-03 09:20:18.000000000 -0600 Modify: 2007-04-01 23:13:05.000000000 -0600 Change: 2007-04-02 16:36:21.000000000 -0600
stat -f /dev/sda
With the -f option, stat can return the status of an entire file system. Here, it returns the status of the first hard disk. Output resembles the following:
File: "/dev/sda"
ID: 0 Namelen: 255 Type: tmpfs
Block size: 4096 Fundamental block size: 4096
Blocks: Total: 2560 Free: 2560 Available: 2560
Inodes: Total: 126428 Free: 125966
stat --format "%A" /var/log/syslog
Display only the access restrictions, in human-readable form, of the system log /var/log/syslog. Output resembles the following:
-rw-r-----
...which indicates that the file is readable and writable by root, readable by the owning group (in this case the admin group), and not accessible at all by others.
Related commands
ls — List the contents of a directory or directories.