Re: [XEN RFC for-4.14] Re: use of "stat -"

[Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jan Beulich writes ("Re: [XEN RFC for-4.14] Re: use of "stat -""):
> Looking at vfs_statx() in the kernel, I can't see any provisions to
> get at the data without traversing the specified path.

The question is what "traversing the path" means.

How do you explain this ?

$ >t
$ exec 3>t
$ stat -L -c '%F %i' /dev/stdin <&3
regular empty file 421124
$ ll /dev/stdin <&3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Jun  7 02:01 /dev/stdin -> /proc/self/fd/0
$ ll /proc/self/fd/0 <&3
l-wx------ 1 ian ian 64 Jun 25 14:29 /proc/self/fd/0 -> /home/ian/t
$ mv t u
$ ll /proc/self/fd/0 <&3
l-wx------ 1 ian ian 64 Jun 25 14:29 /proc/self/fd/0 -> /home/ian/u
$ rm u
$ ll /proc/self/fd/0 <&3
l-wx------ 1 ian ian 64 Jun 25 14:29 /proc/self/fd/0 -> '/home/ian/u (deleted)'
$ stat -L -c '%F %i' /dev/stdin <&3
regular empty file 421124
$ ll -Li /dev/stdin <&3
421124 -rw-rw-r-- 0 ian ian 0 Jun 25 14:28 /dev/stdin
$

Clearly it isn't actually following this synthetic symlink to
"/home/ian/u (deleted)".

Ian.