What is the "stat information" in the git index?

Question

In the git documentation (for example, git -checkout-index http://linux.die.net/man/1/git-checkout-index ), there are links to "stat information" in the index file. What is this mysterious "statistics information"?

Answer 1

This information that stat() will return is, in particular, file permissions since they were tracked. (Other information includes timestamps, files, user / group owners, and inodes.)

There is also a stat command line program, which is essentially a wrapper for this system call; try stat <file> and you will see all this information.