stat

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

stat -- 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.

In case of error, stat() returns FALSE. It also will throw a warning.

Returns an array with the statistics of the file with the following elements. This array is zero-based. In addition to returning these attributes in a numeric array, they can be accessed with associative indices, as noted next to each parameter; this is available since PHP 4.0.6:

Table 1. stat() and fstat() result format

NumericAssociative (since PHP 4.0.6)Description
0devdevice number
1inoinode number
2modeinode protection mode
3nlinknumber of links
4uiduserid of owner
5gidgroupid of owner
6rdevdevice type, if inode device *
7sizesize in bytes
8atimetime of last access (Unix timestamp)
9mtimetime of last modification (Unix timestamp)
10ctimetime of last inode change (Unix timestamp)
11blksizeblocksize of filesystem IO *
12blocksnumber of blocks allocated
* Only valid on systems supporting the st_blksize type - other systems (e.g. Windows) return -1.

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 Appendix M for a listing of which wrappers support stat() family of functionality.

See also lstat(), fstat(), filemtime(), and filegroup().