Fstatatint

Fstatatint is not a standard function name in POSIX, Linux, or other major C libraries. It is likely a misspelling or a mistaken reference to the fstatat function, which is a real system call used to obtain file status with a path relative to a directory file descriptor. This article describes fstatat and notes why the exact term fstatatint may be ambiguous.

Fstatat is declared as int fstatat(int dirfd, const char *pathname, struct stat *statbuf, int flags). It fills statbuf with information about the file indicated by pathname, according to the same data as stat or lstat. The dirfd parameter provides the directory against which a relative pathname is resolved. If pathname is absolute, dirfd is ignored. If dirfd is AT_FDCWD, the current working directory is used for relative paths.

Path resolution and flags: If pathname is relative, it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by dirfd. If the AT_EMPTY_PATH flag is set and pathname is an empty string, the file referred to by dirfd is stat-ed. If the AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW flag is set and pathname names a symbolic link, the link itself is stat-ed rather than the file it points to.

Return value and errors: On success, fstatat returns 0 and populates statbuf. On error, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate the failure (for example, ENOENT, EACCES, or ENOTDIR).

Availability and usage: fstatat is part of the POSIX API and is commonly available on Linux, BSD, and other Unix-like systems with glibc or equivalent C libraries. It provides a flexible alternative to stat when relative path resolution from a directory file descriptor is needed, including behavior with symbolic links and empty-path handling.