0 down vote favorite


I'm trying to figure out how exactly to use stat() to capture information about a file. What I need is to be able to print several fields of information about a file. So..

#include <iostream>
 #include <sys/types.h>
 #include <sys/stat.h>
 #include <fcntl.h>
 using namespace std;

 int main() {
     struct stat buf;
     stat("file",&buf);
               ...
     cout << st_dev << endl;
     cout << st_ino << endl;
     cout << st_mode << endl;
     cout << st_nlink << endl;
     cout << st_uid << endl;
     cout << st_gid << endl;
     cout << st_rdev << endl;
     cout << st_size << endl;
     cout << st_blksize << endl;
     cout << st_blocks << endl;
     cout << st_atime << endl;
     cout << st_mtime << endl;
     cout << st_ctime << endl;
     ...
 }

I'm thoroughly confused about how to do this. Why is &buf a parameter to stat? I don't care about storing this information in memory, I just need the outputted fields within my c++ program. How do I access the information contained in the struct? Is buf actually supposed to contain the returned information from stat()?

0 down vote favorite


I'm trying to figure out how exactly to use stat() to capture information about a file. What I need is to be able to print several fields of information about a file. So..

#include <iostream>
 #include <sys/types.h>
 #include <sys/stat.h>
 #include <fcntl.h>
 using namespace std;

 int main() {
     struct stat buf;
     stat("file",&buf);
               ...
     cout << st_dev << endl;
     cout << st_ino << endl;
     cout << st_mode << endl;
     cout << st_nlink << endl;
     cout << st_uid << endl;
     cout << st_gid << endl;
     cout << st_rdev << endl;
     cout << st_size << endl;
     cout << st_blksize << endl;
     cout << st_blocks << endl;
     cout << st_atime << endl;
     cout << st_mtime << endl;
     cout << st_ctime << endl;
     ...
 }

I'm thoroughly confused about how to do this. Why is &buf a parameter to stat? I don't care about storing this information in memory, I just need the outputted fields within my c++ program. How do I access the information contained in the struct? Is buf actually supposed to contain the returned information from stat()?

EDIT: The solution is just to use object notation: "cout << buf.st_size << endl;"

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