.TH STAT 1
.SH NAME
stat \- print information about a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B stat
[
.B -f
.I format
] [
.B -9DL
]
.I file
[
.I file...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
.I Stat
prints various bits of information about
.I file
based on a given
.IR format ,
described below.
The default format is \fL%t%n\fR, yielding the modification time and a newline.
.PP
.I Format
is a string containing any number of data elements to print,
each indicated by a
.B %
followed by a single character
.IR verb ,
similar to a
.IR print (2)
specification but with no flags.
Each verb corresponds to either a single data element,
such as the file modification time or group,
a combination of them,
or a literal character output.
The verbs which produce literal character output are for
convenience in environments where quoting is difficult or tedius;
characters not preceeded by a % are otherwise passed through.
Unrecognized verbs are ignored.
.PP
The options
.IR -9 ,
.IR -D ,
and
.I -L
are convenience shortcuts, equivalent to the formats of the same character
followed by a newline in the case of
.I -9
and
.IR -L .
.SH VERBS
.SS
Basic values
.in 6m
.ta 4m
.ti2m
\fL%a\fR	Last access time; Dir->atime.
.ti2m
\fL%d\fR	Device; Dir->dev.
.ti2m
\fL%g\fR	Group; Dir->gid.
.ti2m
\fL%l\fR	Size (length) in bytes; Dir->length.
.ti2m
\fL%m\fR	Mode; access permissions and file attributes; Dir->mode.
.ti2m
\fL%M\fR	User who last modified the file; Dir->muid.
.ti2m
\fL%n\fR	A newline.
.ti2m
\fL%N\fR	Name of the file; Dir->name.
.ti2m
\fL%o\fR	Owner of the file; Dir->uid.
.ti2m
\fL%p\fR	Qid path; Dir->qid.path.
.ti2m
\fL%q\fR	Qid type, the file attributes in the top two bytes of Dir->mode; Dir->qid.type.
.ti2m
\fL%t\fR	Last modification time; Dir->mtime.
.ti2m
\fL%T\fR	Character representing the file server type; Dir->type.
.br
(Not to be confused with the
.I type
component of the Qid.)
.ti2m
\fL%v\fR	Version of the file, per the Qid; Dir->qid.vers.
.SS
Composite values
.in 6m
.ta 4m
.ti2m
\fL%9\fR	A composite output similar to that of \fL9p stat\fR
from Plan 9 from User Space.
.ti2m
\fL%D\fR	A verbose output of the full Dir structure.
.ti2m
\fL%L\fR	A composite output similar to that of \fLls -l\fR,
except that it leaves mode and time as their raw values.
.ti2m
\fL%Q\fR	Qid; equivalent to
.LR "%p %v %q" .
.SS
Character literals
.in 6m
.ta 4m
.ti2m
\fL%n\fR	A newline.
.ti2m
\fL%_\fR	A tab.
.ti2m
\fL%%\fR	A %.
.ti2m
\fL% \fR	(% followed by a space) A space.
.SH BUGS
It's frustrating that the literals aren't the same as
.IR datefmt (1).
.PP
There exist some functions suitable for
.IR fmtinstall (2)
which we aren't using.