New: Documentation: meaning of device number / ID in `stat` and `stat()`

Bug 215514 [email protected] 1 participant 1 message Jan 21, 2022 Man-pages: manual pages for Linux -- Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7

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2022-01-21 12:40 UTC #0 lore raw

https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=215514

            Bug ID: 215514
           Summary: Documentation: meaning of device number / ID in `stat`
                    and `stat()`
           Product: Documentation
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: All
                OS: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P1
         Component: man-pages
          Assignee: [email protected]
          Reporter: [email protected]
        Regression: No

The man page man 2 stat for stat() gives the impression that stat.st_dev is always composed of major and minor of an existing block device. However, filesystems such as btrfs allocate new device number not (clearly) related to the underlying device(s). The description of st_dev needs to be updated.

Similarly, a clarification would be useful in man 1 stat either directly in the description of the %d and %D formats or after the formats table.

My system: openSUSE Leap 15.3

Checked in current man pages as of 2022-01-21:
* https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/stat.2.html
* https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/stat.1.html

Related:
* https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues/1562 (closed, wrong place)

Breadcrumbs:
* https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues/1563 (closed, wrong place)

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