PHP Manual: Gives information about a file

Description

array stat ( string $filename )

Gathers the statistics of the file named by filename. If filename is a symbolic link, statistics are from the file itself, not the symlink.

lstat is identical to stat except it would instead be based off the symlinks status.

Parameters

filename: Path to the file.

Return Values

**stat and fstat result format**
Numeric	Associative (since PHP 4.0.6)	Description
0	dev	device number
1	ino	inode number *
2	mode	inode protection mode
3	nlink	number of links
4	uid	userid of owner *
5	gid	groupid of owner *
6	rdev	device type, if inode device
7	size	size in bytes
8	atime	time of last access (Unix timestamp)
9	mtime	time of last modification (Unix timestamp)
10	ctime	time of last inode change (Unix timestamp)
11	blksize	blocksize of filesystem IO **
12	blocks	number of 512-byte blocks allocated **

* On Windows this will always be 0.

** Only valid on systems supporting the st_blksize type - other systems (e.g. Windows) return -1.

In case of error, stat returns FALSE.

Note: Because PHP's integer type is signed and many platforms use 32bit integers, some filesystem functions may return unexpected results for files which are larger than 2GB.

Errors/Exceptions

Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

Changelog

Version	Description
4.0.6	In addition to returning these attributes in a numeric array, they can be accessed with associative indices, as noted next to each parameter

Examples

Example #1 stat example


<?php
/* Get file stat */
$stat = stat('C:\php\php.exe');

/*
 * Print file access time, this is the same 
 * as calling fileatime()
 */
echo 'Access time: ' . $stat['atime'];

/*
 * Print file modification time, this is the 
 * same as calling filemtime()
 */
echo 'Modification time: ' . $stat['mtime'];

/* Print the device number */
echo 'Device number: ' . $stat['dev'];
?>

Example #2 Using stat information together with touch


<?php
/* Get file stat */
$stat = stat('C:\php\php.exe');

/* Did we failed to get stat information? */
if (!$stat) {
    echo 'stat() call failed...';
} else {
    /*
     * We want the access time to be 1 week 
     * after the current access time.
     */
    $atime = $stat['atime'] + 604800;

    /* Touch the file */
    if (!touch('some_file.txt', time(), $atime)) {
        echo 'Failed to touch file...';
    } else {
        echo 'touch() returned success...';
    }
}
?>

Notes

Note:
Note that time resolution may differ from one file system to another.

Note: The results of this function are cached. See clearstatcache for more details.

Tip

As of PHP 5.0.0, this function can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to Supported Protocols and Wrappers to determine which wrappers support stat family of functionality.