What is the semantics of "stat" on dirhandle in Perl?

While researching another question, I noticed that a stat

Perl function can take a dirhandle as its argument (instead of a file or filename).

However, I cannot find examples of how to use this correctly - there are none in the Perl manual.

Can anyone show an example on how to use it?

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4 answers


You use it the same way you would for a file or file descriptor:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

my $dir = shift;
opendir(DIR, $dir) or die "Failed to open $dir: $!\n";
my @stats = stat DIR;
closedir(DIR);
my $atime = scalar localtime $stats[8];

print "Last access time on $dir: $atime\n";

      



The ability to use stat for directory descriptors was only added in Perl 5.10, so it should be avoided if you care about portability.

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You use it in the same way as stat

in the file descriptor:

<~> $ mkdir -v foo ; perl -e 'opendir($dh , "./foo"); @s = stat $dh; print "@s"'
mkdir: created directory `foo'
2049 11681802 16877 2 1001 1001 0 4096 1228059876 1228059876 1228059876 4096 8

      



(Personally, I like to use File::stat

to get nice named accessories, so I don't have to remember (or look for) that the fifth item is a UID ...)

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Just remember that if a handle has ever been used as a file handle, as well as a dirhandle, stat will apply to the file, not the directory:

$ perl -wl
opendir $h, "." or die;
open $h, "/etc/services" or die;
print "dir:".readdir($h);
print "file:".readline($h);
print stat("/etc/services");
print stat(".");
print stat($h);
close($h);
print stat($h);
__END__
dir:.
file:# Network services, Internet style

205527886633188100018274122800783211967194861209994037409640
20551515522168777410001000020480122803711512280371021228037102409640
205527886633188100018274122800783211967194861209994037409640
stat() on closed filehandle $h at - line 1.
    (Are you trying to call stat() on dirhandle $h?)

      

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I am using Perl 5.10.1 on windows (ActivePerl) and stat on dirhandle is not working. But doing stat on the directory path line works.

work

  my $mtime = (stat( $directory ))[ 9 ];
  print "D $directory $mtime\n";

      

it is not ("dirfd function not implemented ...")

  my $dh;
  if( opendir( $dh, $directory ) == 0 ) {
    print "ERROR: can't open directory '$directory': $!\n";
    return;
  }
  $mtime = (stat( $dh ))[ 9 ];
  print "D $directory $mtime\n";

      

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