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



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 variables 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 populate() func-tion function
       tion 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(3pm)