info returns something different than ls

[mxmlnkn]

The API specifications states:

Returns a single dictionary, with exactly the same information as ls would with detail=True.

But, this does not hold true for this code:

import pprint
o = fsspec.open("ssh://127.0.0.1")
print("Info of /bin from listdir call")
pprint.pprint([x for x in ol.fs.listdir('/', detail=True) if x['name'] == '/bin'][0])
print("Info of /bin from info call")
pprint.pprint(o.fs.info('/bin'))

The output is:

Info of /bin from listdir call
{'created': 1601554848.8334851,
 'destination': 'usr/bin',
 'gid': 0,
 'ino': 13,
 'islink': True,
 'mode': 41471,
 'mtime': 1601554848.8334851,
 'name': '/bin',
 'nlink': 1,
 'size': 147456,
 'type': 'other',
 'uid': 0}

Info of /bin from info call
{'gid': 0,
 'mtime': datetime.datetime(2024, 9, 6, 10, 25, 16, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc),
 'name': '/bin',
 'size': 45056,
 'time': datetime.datetime(2024, 9, 18, 20, 33, 50, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc),
 'type': 'directory',
 'uid': 0}

Obviously, this seems to be an issue with handling links, similar to #742. I.e., something like linfo / lstat or a follow_symlinks argument would have to be added to resolve this, and the API text should be updated.

[martindurant]

Agreed, this appears to be a deficiency of the ssh implementation. Indeed, info does stat, although lstat also exists. I agree that a follow_symlink argument would be useful, if you would like to add it.