You are viewing the version of this documentation from Perl blead. This is the main development branch of Perl. (git commit b3138094d90d9a1861f0e10af33500f7d508e29c)
lstat FILEHANDLE
lstat EXPR
lstat DIRHANDLE
lstat

Does the same thing as the stat function (including setting the special _ filehandle) but stats a symbolic link instead of the file the symbolic link points to. If symbolic links are unimplemented on your system, a normal stat is done. For much more detailed information, please see the documentation for stat.

If EXPR is omitted, stats $_.

Portability issues: "lstat" in perlport.