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.