getattrlist

Reads a selected set of file attributes in a single syscall using a packed attrlist (macOS-specific).

Prototype

int getattrlist(const char *path, struct attrlist *alist, void *attributeBuffer, size_t bufferSize, u_long options);

Returns: int

Arguments

Name	Type	Dir
path	const char	-
alist	struct attrlist	-
attributeBuffer	void	-
bufferSize	size_t	-
options	u_long	-

Version history

XNU tag	macOS	#
xnu-1456.1.26	macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard	220
xnu-1486.2.11	—	220
xnu-1504.15.3	—	220
xnu-1504.3.12	—	220
xnu-1504.7.4	—	220
xnu-1504.9.17	—	220
xnu-1504.9.26	—	220
xnu-1504.9.37	—	220

Examples

C — read common attributes

struct attrlist al = {0};
al.bitmapcount = ATTR_BIT_MAP_COUNT;
al.commonattr = ATTR_CMN_NAME | ATTR_CMN_MODTIME;
char buf[1024];
getattrlist(path, &al, buf, sizeof buf, 0);

Notes

Far more efficient than multiple stat/xattr calls when many attributes are needed. Supports common, volume, dir, file and forkattr groups. Many APFS-specific attributes (clone status, sealed state, dataless detection) are only accessible through this API.

Detection

syscall::getattrlist:entry in DTrace; the attrlist struct can be decoded from arg1.

Related APIs

fgetattrlistsetattrlistgetattrlistatgetattrlistbulkstat