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() 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