Linux display the date when a file was accessed with stat command
A quick question from my mail bag:
How do I display or get the date when a file was last time accessed?
The best and simplest way is to use stat command. It displays file or file system status such as:
=> File size
=> File type
=> Inode number
=> UID/GID
=> File access , modify and creation time etc.
stat command example
$ stat /etc/passwd
Output
File: `/etc/passwd' Size: 2453 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file Device: 806h/2054d Inode: 25298826 Links: 1 Access: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root) Access: 2007-08-06 04:45:18.000000000 -0500 Modify: 2007-07-17 16:25:12.000000000 -0500 Change: 2007-07-17 16:25:12.000000000 -0500
Display file system status
You can display file system status instead of file status. For example, display status for / file system:
$ stat -f /
Output:
File: "/"
ID: 0 Namelen: 255 Type: ext2/ext3
Block size: 4096 Fundamental block size: 4096
Blocks: Total: 32161831 Free: 30458361 Available: 28798245
Inodes: Total: 33226752 Free: 33135357
stat command and shell scripts
You can use stat in a shell script. It supports -c option. By default it shows all information about file. Use -c option to specify FORMAT instead of the default. For example store access time in a shell variable:
ATIME=$(stat -c "%x" /etc/passwd) echo $ATIME
See the stat command man page for full details for the valid format sequences for files:
man stat
You may also be interested in other helpful articles:
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- Shell script to open files based on date
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Tags: access_time, creation_time, format_sequences, ls_command, shell_script, shell_variable, stat_command
stat command example
$ ls /etc/passwd
this could be “$ stat /etc/passwd” ?
Thanks for the heads up! The post has been updated.
Dear Sir,
I want know the time of command when command run my any user or root on linux system
Thanks
pradeep
”
=> File size
=> File type
=> Inode number
=> UID/GID
=> File access , modify (change) and creation time etc.
”
I though that stat command never show creation time. Only access, modify and change. Am I wrong?
No, you are not. UNIX and Linux never stores creation time. It was a typo.
Appreciate your post!
Hi,
I just want to find the list of users who are currently accessing/accessed a purticular file from linux server?
Thanks
RK
is there a way to modify the property of the last time a file was accessed?
ur2g2b4got,
use touch command to update date/time stamp.