Best way to determine node type?

System

TS 6.5 SP2, Win 2003

What is the best way to, via command line, determine what type of node something is? For instance, if I have checked something off in the GUI, how can I tell if it's a file versus a workarea versus a branch?

I thought to use "iwattrib" but, for whatever reason, the command turns out "Error connecting to server" about 80% of the time, which is magically helpful, of course.

Dave