[SOLVED] st_mode of a symlink has weird value

st_mode of a symlink has weird value

I'm stat()'ing this symlink (on Kubuntu GNU/Linux 16.04), and am getting the weird value of 0100600 octal (33152 decimal). If I bitwise-and it with S_IFMT (which is 0170000 octal), I get 0600 octal. What does that mean? stat.h lists the following values:

/* File types.  */
#define __S_IFDIR   0040000 /* Directory.  */
#define __S_IFCHR   0020000 /* Character device.  */
#define __S_IFBLK   0060000 /* Block device.  */
#define __S_IFREG   0100000 /* Regular file.  */
#define __S_IFIFO   0010000 /* FIFO.  */
#define __S_IFLNK   0120000 /* Symbolic link.  */
#define __S_IFSOCK  0140000 /* Socket.  */

I'm expecting to see 0120000, not 0600 (all octal). What gives?

Solution

Based on @dave_thompson_085's observation: Indeed, stat() follows symlinks; I should be calling lstat() - which does exactly the same thing, but doesn't follow the link.