Getting Detailed Metadata

The stat command provides complete metadata including access, modify, change times, and inode.

Syntax:

stat [filename]

Example

$ stat myfile.txt

Output:

  File: myfile.txt
  Size: 1024       Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 802h/2050d Inode: 131080      Links: 1
Access: 2025-07-22 10:12:05.000000000 +0530
Modify: 2025-07-22 10:10:01.000000000 +0530
Change: 2025-07-22 10:11:00.000000000 +0530
 Birth: -

Explanation:

Determining File Type Using file Command

The file command is used to identify the type of a file by examining its content, not its extension.

Syntax

file [filename]

Example

$ file myfile.txt

Output:

myfile.txt: ASCII text

Examples

$ file /bin/ls
/bin/ls: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, dynamically linked, ...
 
$ file image.png
image.png: PNG image data, 800 x 600, 8-bit/color RGB, non-interlaced

Explanation:

• Text files show as ASCII text, UTF-8 Unicode text, etc.
• Executables show ELF format, architecture.
• Images display format (e.g., PNG, JPEG), dimensions, encoding.

Using ls -i to See Inode Number

Inodes store all metadata (except filename and content). To view the inode:

$ ls -i myfile.txt
131080 myfile.txt

• 131080 is the inode number — useful when tracking hard links.

Summary Table