ref: 1f6de2fe3823cc6e749b8254187e81e20589bae8
dir: /man/5/stat/
.TH STAT 5 .SH NAME stat, wstat \- inquire or change file attributes .SH SYNOPSIS .ta \w'\fLTwstat 'u .IR size [4] .B Tstat .IR tag [2] .IR fid [4] .br .IR size [4] .B Rstat .IR tag [2] .IR stat [ n ] .PP .IR size [4] .B Twstat .IR tag [2] .IR fid [4] .IR stat [ n ] .br .IR size [4] .B Rwstat .IR tag [2] .SH DESCRIPTION The .B stat transaction inquires about the file identified by .IR fid . The reply will contain a machine-independent .I directory .IR entry , .IR stat , laid out as follows: .TP .I size\f1[2]\fP total byte count of the following data .TP .I type\f1[2]\fP for kernel use .TP .I dev\f1[4]\fP for kernel use .TP .I qid.type\f1[1]\fP the type of the file (directory, etc.), represented as a bit vector corresponding to the high 8 bits of the file's mode word. .TP .I qid.vers\f1[4]\fP version number for given path .TP .I qid.path\f1[8]\fP the file server's unique identification for the file .TP .I mode\f1[4]\fP permissions and flags .TP .I atime\f1[4]\fP last access time .TP .I mtime\f1[4]\fP last modification time .TP .I length\f1[8]\fP length of file in bytes .TP .I name\f1[ s ]\fP file name; must be .B / if the file is the root directory of the server .TP .I uid\f1[ s ]\fP owner name .TP .I gid\f1[ s ]\fP group name .TP .I muid\f1[ s ]\fP name of the user who last modified the file .PD .PP Integers in this encoding are in little-endian order (least significant byte first). The .B unpackdir and .B packdir functions of .IR styx (2) convert between directory entries and the Limbo adt .BR Sys->Dir . For C implementations, the .I convM2D and .I convD2M routines (see .IR styx (10.2)) convert between directory entries and a C structure called .BR Dir . .PP The .I mode contains permission bits as described in .IR intro (5) and the following: .B 16r80000000 .RB ( DMDIR , this file is a directory), .B 16r40000000 .RB ( DMAPPEND , append only), .B 16r20000000 .RB ( DMEXCL , exclusive use), .B 16r04000000 .RB ( DMTMP , temporary); these are echoed in .BR Qid.type . Writes to append-only files always place their data at the end of the file; the .I offset in the .B write message is ignored, as is the .B OTRUNC bit in an open. Exclusive use files may be open for I/O by only one fid at a time across all clients of the server. If a second open is attempted, it draws an error. Servers may implement a timeout on the lock on an exclusive use file: if the fid holding the file open has been unused for an extended period (of order at least minutes), it is reasonable to break the lock and deny the initial fid further I/O. Temporary files are not included in any automatic archives or dumps a server might create. .PP The two time fields are measured in seconds since the epoch (Jan 1 00:00 1970 GMT). The .I mtime field reflects the time of the last change of content (except when later changed by .BR wstat ). For a plain file, .I mtime is the time of the most recent .BR create , .B open with truncation, or .BR write ; for a directory it is the time of the most recent .BR remove , .BR create , or .B wstat of a file in the directory. Similarly, the .I atime field records the last .B read of the contents; also it is set whenever .I mtime is set. In addition, for a directory, it is set by an .BR attach , .BR walk , or .BR create , all whether successful or not. .PP The .I muid field names the user whose actions most recently changed the .I mtime of the file. .PP The .I length records the number of bytes in the file. Directories and most files representing devices have a conventional length of 0. .PP The .B stat request requires no special permissions. .PP The .B wstat request can change some of the file status information. The .I name can be changed by anyone with write permission in the parent directory; it is an error to change the name to that of an existing file. The .I length can be changed (affecting the actual length of the file) by anyone with write permission on the file. It is an error to attempt to set the length of a directory to a non-zero value, and servers may decide to reject length changes for other reasons. The .I mode and .I mtime can be changed by the owner of the file or the group leader of the file's current group. The directory bit cannot be changed by a .BR wstat ; the other defined permission and mode bits can. The .I gid can be changed: by the owner if also a member of the new group; or by the group leader of the file's current group if also leader of the new group (see .IR intro (5) for more information about permissions and .IR users (6) for users and groups). None of the other data can be altered by a .B wstat and attempts to change them will trigger an error. In particular, it is illegal to attempt to change the owner of a file. (These conditions may be relaxed when establishing the initial state of a file server.) .PP Either all the changes in .B wstat request happen, or none of them does: if the request succeeds, all changes were made; if it fails, none were. .PP A .B wstat request can avoid modifying some properties of the file by providing explicit ``don't touch'' values in the .B stat data that is sent: zero-length strings for text values and the maximum unsigned value of appropriate size for integral values. As a special case, if .I all the elements of the directory entry in a .B Twstat message are ``don't touch'' values, the server may interpret it as a request to guarantee that the contents of the associated file are committed to stable storage before the .B Rwstat message is returned. (Consider the message to mean, ``make the state of the file exactly what it claims to be.'') .PP A .I read of a directory yields an integral number of directory entries in the machine independent encoding given above (see .IR read (5)). .PP Note that since the .B stat information is sent as a 9P variable-length datum, it is limited to a maximum of 65535 bytes. .SH ENTRY POINTS .B Stat messages are generated by .I fstat and .IR stat . .PP .B Wstat messages are generated by .I fwstat and .IR wstat . .SH SEE ALSO .IR sys-stat (2), .IR intro (5), .IR read (5), .IR intro (10), .IR styx (10.2) .SH BUGS To make the contents of a directory, such as returned by .IR read (5), easy to parse, each directory entry begins with a size field. For consistency, the entries in .B Twstat and .B Rstat messages also contain their size, which means the size appears twice. For example, the .B Rstat message is formatted as .RI ``(4+1+2+2+ n )[4] .B Rstat .IR tag [2] .IR n [2] .RI ( n -2)[2] .IR type [2] .IR dev [4]...,'' where .I n is the length of the array returned by .BR Styx->packdir .