STAT(1)

📦
version 0.12.0 · 7 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 STAT(1) 💖 — or, "bestie, let me tell you everything about this file" ✨

okay so you know how sometimes you just need to know everything about a file? like its whole lore? that's this. it's stat, from the General Commands Manual, and it's giving main character energy fr fr 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

stat — Display file or file system status. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

stat [OPTION]... FILE...

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Display file or file system status. that's it, that's the whole vibe. she shows you the receipts on your files AND your file systems. no cap. 💖

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -L, --dereference — follow links 🐇 (yes, literally, she goes down the rabbit hole instead of just pointing at the door)
  • -f, --file-system — display file system status instead of file status. so instead of the file's tea, you get the whole filesystem's tea 🍵
  • -t, --terse — print the information in terse form. short queen. minimal words, maximum data ✂️
  • -c, --format <FORMAT> — use the specified FORMAT instead of the default; and heads up bestie, output a newline after each use of FORMAT 🌈
  • --printf <FORMAT> — like --format, but interpret backslash escapes, and do not output a mandatory trailing newline; if you want a newline, include \n in FORMAT. she's ✨unhinged✨ like that, you gotta ask for your own newline 😭
  • -h, --help — Print help 🙋‍♀️
  • -V, --version — Print version 👑
  • <files> — the files. the little guys. your blorbos 📁

💅 EXTRA 💅

valid format sequences for files (without --file-system) 🗂️

  • %a — access rights in octal (note '#' and '0' printf flags)
  • %A — access rights in human readable form
  • %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 — raw mode in hex
  • %F — file type
  • %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 (follow) 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
⚠️ NOTE: your shell may have its own version of stat, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports. (translation: your shell might be doing its own thing and not telling you. check her docs. 💀)

👑 VERSION 👑

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

Display properties about a specific file such as size, permissions, creation date, and access date among others:

stat path/to/file

Display properties about a specific file, only showing the raw result data without labels:

stat [-t|--terse] path/to/file

Display information about the filesystem where a specific file is located:

stat [-f|--file-system] path/to/file

Show only octal file permissions:

stat [-c|--format] "%a %n" path/to/file

Show the owner and group of a specific file:

stat [-c|--format] "%U %G" path/to/file

Show the size of a specific file in bytes:

stat [-c|--format] "%s %n" path/to/file

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail. 🙈 (no shade, she's still growing, be nice to her)

and that's the whole page bestie!! this drop is from uutils coreutils, version 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-25 — go forth and stat everything, you icon, you absolute legend 💜🌈⭐

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