File::stat(3)                    Perl Programmers Reference Guide                   File::stat(3)



NAME
       File::stat - by-name interface to Perl's built-in stat() functions

SYNOPSIS
        use File::stat;
        $st = stat($file) or die "No $file: $!";
        if ( ($st->mode & 0111) && $st->nlink > 1) ) {
            print "$file is executable with lotsa links\n";
        }

        use File::stat qw(:FIELDS);
        stat($file) or die "No $file: $!";
        if ( ($st_mode & 0111) && $st_nlink > 1) ) {
            print "$file is executable with lotsa links\n";
        }

DESCRIPTION
       This module's default exports override the core stat() and lstat() functions, replacing
       them with versions that return "File::stat" objects.  This object has methods that return
       the similarly named structure field name from the stat(2) function; namely, dev, ino,
       mode, nlink, uid, gid, rdev, size, atime, mtime, ctime, blksize, and blocks.

       You may also import all the structure fields directly into your namespace as regular vari-
       ables using the :FIELDS import tag.  (Note that this still overrides your stat() and
       lstat() functions.)  Access these fields as variables named with a preceding "st_" in
       front their method names.  Thus, "$stat_obj->dev()" corresponds to $st_dev if you import
       the fields.

       To access this functionality without the core overrides, pass the "use" an empty import
       list, and then access function functions with their full qualified names.  On the other
       hand, the built-ins are still available via the "CORE::" pseudo-package.

BUGS
       As of Perl 5.8.0 after using this module you cannot use the implicit $_ or the special
       filehandle "_" with stat() or lstat(), trying to do so leads into strange errors.  The
       workaround is for $_ to be explicit

           my $stat_obj = stat $_;

       and for "_" to explicitly populate the object using the unexported and undocumented popu-
       late() function with CORE::stat():

           my $stat_obj = File::stat::populate(CORE::stat(_));

NOTE
       While this class is currently implemented using the Class::Struct module to build a
       struct-like class, you shouldn't rely upon this.

AUTHOR
       Tom Christiansen



perl v5.8.8                                 2001-09-21                              File::stat(3)