Calling stat from <sys/stat.h> faills with "Value too large for defined data type" error

Question

Given tmp.c:

#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
    struct stat st;
    if (stat(argv[1], &st) != 0)
    {
        perror("Error calling stat");
    }

    return 0;
}

I get Error calling stat: Value too large for defined data type, when I run the program on a large file (~2.5 Gb).

Answer 1

One needs to #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64: either add it before you #include <sys/stat.h> or define it in your platform-specific way e.g., for gcc see -D option; for Visual Studio go to project properties -> Configuration Properties -> C/C++ -> Preprocessor -> Preprocessor Definitions

Answer 2

If others have this problem and the _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64 before #include "sys/stat.h" did not solve it yet, just move it in front of all other include's too. I did not find out which headers also depended on this but it solved the problem.

Answer 3

Have a look in to this link . It provides you the way to handle such issue.

This is typically done by defining -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 or some such. It is system dependent. Once done and once switched into this new mode most programs will support large files just fine.