PHP: stat - Manual

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 (i.e. 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 L for a listing of which wrappers support stat() family of functionality.

User Contributed Notes
stat

guillermo martinez
30-Jan-2005 12:24


stat() and SELinux,



You can have troubles to use the stat() function if the SELinux is enabled, so check the SELinux documentation or turn it off.

10-Nov-2004 09:41


If the 2GB limit is driving you crazy, you can use this complete hack.  use in place of filesize()



function file_size($file) {

  $size = filesize($file);

  if ( $size == 0)

    $size = exec("ls -l $file | awk '{print $5}'");

  return $size;

}

svend at svendtofte dot com
09-Oct-2004 06:31


To the note of how you can figure out if a file is a folder or not, there is also the handy "is_dir" function.

salisbm at hotmail dot com
11-Aug-2003 07:21


I was curious how I could tell if a file was a directory... so I found on http://www.hmug.org/man/2/stat.html the following information about the mode bits:

#define S_IFMT 0170000           /* type of file */

#define        S_IFIFO  0010000  /* named pipe (fifo) */

#define        S_IFCHR  0020000  /* character special */

#define        S_IFDIR  0040000  /* directory */

#define        S_IFBLK  0060000  /* block special */

#define        S_IFREG  0100000  /* regular */

#define        S_IFLNK  0120000  /* symbolic link */

#define        S_IFSOCK 0140000  /* socket */

#define        S_IFWHT  0160000  /* whiteout */

#define S_ISUID 0004000  /* set user id on execution */

#define S_ISGID 0002000  /* set group id on execution */

#define S_ISVTX 0001000  /* save swapped text even after use */

#define S_IRUSR 0000400  /* read permission, owner */

#define S_IWUSR 0000200  /* write permission, owner */

#define S_IXUSR 0000100  /* execute/search permission, owner */



Note that these numbers are in octal format.  Then, to check to see if the file is a directory, after calling fstat, I do:



if ($fstats[mode] & 040000)

  ... this must be a directory

ian at eiloart dot com
23-Jul-1999 10:52


Here's what the UNIX man page on stat has to say about the difference between a file change and  a file modification:





st_mtime  Time when data was last modified.  Changed by  the following  functions:   creat(),  mknod(), pipe(), utime(), and write(2).





st_ctime  Time when file status was last  changed.   Changed by  the  following  functions: chmod(), chown(), creat(), link(2), mknod(), pipe(), unlink(2), utime(), and write().





So a modification is a change in the data, whereas a change also happens if you modify file permissions and so on.