On 1/18/26 12:22 PM, Crystal Kolipe wrote:
> Hi Ingo,
>
> On Sun, Jan 18, 2026 at 04:21:21PM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote:
> .....
>
> On the other hand, there is a minor downside to adding it.
> While stat(1) does not sport a STANDARDS section and the HISTORY
> section makes it quite apparent that it is unlikely to be particularly
> portable, that is easy to overlook, in particular when getting there
> from a place as prominent as the manual of the POSIX ls(1) command,
> so such a link could incite people to lower portability of whatever
> they are doing without even becoming aware of the issue.
>
> So i'm mildly opposed to adding stat(1) to ls(1) SEE ALSO,
> unless someone can convince me what stat(1) can provide that
> readers of ls(1) might be looking for.
>
> The common reason for preferring stat over ls is in getting timestamps in a
> format that can be reliably parsed in scripts.
>
> ......
>
> So basically script writers who are trying to parse timestamps read from ls
> because they are unaware of stat are who would potentially benefit from a
> mention in ls(1).
>
> Admittedly that might be a small audience, but I can imagine that it might
> avoid some overly complicated or buggy scripts being written.
>
A small audience, probably.
I found out about stat(1) by grep(1)ing and searching the web.

For instance, a script with stat(1) and sqlite(1)
adds another dimension to backup supervision.

best
Geoff Steckel