The ls command is probably one of the first commands that anyone using Unix learns, but it only shows a small portion of the information that is available with the stat command.
The stat command pulls information from the file’s inode. As you might be aware, there are actually three sets of dates and times that are stored for every file on your system. These include the date the file was last modified (i.e., the date and time that you see when you use the ls -l command), the time the file was last changed (which includes renaming the file), and the time that file was last accessed.
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