stat

Display file or file system status. Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

Syntax:
       stat [OPTION]... FILE...

Key:
    -L, --dereference
              follow links

    -f, --file-system
              display file system status instead of file status

    -c  --format=FORMAT
              use the specified FORMAT instead of the default; 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

    -t, --terse
              print the information in terse form

    --help display this help and exit

    --version
              output version information and exit

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

    %a     Access rights in octal
    %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 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

Your shell can 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.

Examples

List the file permissions for ss64.sh:

$ stat -c%A ss64.sh
-rw-r--r--

Display permissions in octal form (%a) and the filename (%n) for all files in the directory:

$ stat -c "%a %n" *

or with owner group size in different forms:

$ stat -c "%a %A %G:%U %g:%g %n %s" *

Display file system (directory) information for /etc:

$ stat -f /etc
File: "/etc"
ID: 0 Namelen: 255 Type: reiserfs
Block size: 4096 Fundamental block size: 4096
Blocks: Total: 1977922 Free: 1272318 Available: 1272318
Inodes: Total: 0 Free: 0

“If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong” ~ Richard Feynman

Related Linux commands

chmod - Change access permissions.
ls - List information about file(s).