PHP Manual: stat

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

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 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.