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authorPádraig Brady <P@draigBrady.com>2016-01-12 13:12:37 +0000
committerPádraig Brady <P@draigBrady.com>2016-01-13 11:16:39 +0000
commita0c5313d60703c480014bfd810bf8f1cf9903299 (patch)
tree899e19aa1cbac928c4316f99a21ccdead1f63384 /doc/coreutils.texi
parentd506af44befdbeabb027322652d4842314ba07be (diff)
downloadcoreutils-a0c5313d60703c480014bfd810bf8f1cf9903299.tar.xz
doc: mention the '0#' printf flags with stat %a
* src/stat.c (usage): Mention the '#' and '0' flags are useful with %a. * doc/coreutils.texi (stat invocation): Likewise. Also give an example printing unambiguous octal output. Reported at http://bugs.debian.org/810539
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/coreutils.texi')
-rw-r--r--doc/coreutils.texi7
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index f7bdc4274..eb5159a44 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -11738,7 +11738,7 @@ The valid @var{format} directives for files with @option{--format} and
@option{--printf} are:
@itemize @bullet
-@item %a - Access rights in octal
+@item %a - Access rights in octal (note @samp{#} and @samp{0} printf flags)
@item %A - Access rights in human readable form
@item %b - Number of blocks allocated (see @samp{%B})
@item %B - The size in bytes of each block reported by @samp{%b}
@@ -11770,6 +11770,11 @@ The valid @var{format} directives for files with @option{--format} and
@item %Z - Time of last status change as seconds since Epoch
@end itemize
+The @samp{%a} format prints the octal mode, and so it is useful
+to control the zero padding of the output with the @samp{#} and @samp{0}
+printf flags. For example to pad to at least 3 wide while making larger
+numbers unambiguously octal, you can use @samp{%#03a}.
+
The @samp{%t} and @samp{%T} formats operate on the st_rdev member of
the stat(2) structure, and are only defined for character and block
special files. On some systems or file types, st_rdev may be used to