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stat

show filesystem metadata about a file

GNU stat examples

Show permissions, modify date, ownership and long filename

stat -c "%a/%A  %y %G(%g):%U(%u) %N" /srv/log/apache2/

Sum file sizes

stat -c '%s' *2016* | awk '{sum += $1} END {print sum}'

GNU stat -c variables

This section is taken from man stat

The valid format sequences for files (without --file-system):

  • %A - access rights in human readable form
  • %a - access rights in octal (note '#' and '0' printf flags)
  • %b - number of blocks allocated (see %B)
  • %B - the size in bytes of each block reported by %b
  • %C - SELinux security context string
  • %d - device number in decimal
  • %D - device number in hex
  • %F - file type
  • %f - raw mode in hex
  • %g - group ID of owner
  • %G - group name of owner
  • %h - number of hard links
  • %i - inode number
  • %m - mount point
  • %n - file name
  • %N - quoted file name with dereference if symbolic link
  • %o - optimal I/O transfer size hint
  • %s - total size, in bytes
  • %t - major device type in hex, for character/block device special files
  • %T - minor device type in hex, for character/block device special files
  • %u - user ID of owner
  • %U - user name of owner
  • %w - time of file birth, human-readable; - if unknown
  • %W - time of file birth, seconds since Epoch; 0 if unknown
  • %x - time of last access, human-readable
  • %X - time of last access, seconds since Epoch
  • %y - time of last data modification, human-readable
  • %Y - time of last data modification, seconds since Epoch
  • %z - time of last status change, human-readable
  • %Z - time of last status change, seconds since Epoch

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
  • %d - free file nodes in file system
  • %f - free blocks in file system
  • %i - file system ID in hex
  • %l - maximum length of filenames
  • %n - file name
  • %s - block size (for faster transfers)
  • %S - fundamental block size (for block counts)
  • %t - file system type in hex
  • %T - file system type in human readable form