filectime

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

filectime — Gets inode change time of file

Description

int filectime ( string $filename )

Gets the inode change time of a file.

Parameters

filename: Path to the file.

Return Values

Returns the time the file was last changed, or FALSE on failure. The time is returned as a Unix timestamp.

Examples

Example #1 A filectime() example


<?php

// outputs e.g.  somefile.txt was last changed: December 29 2002 22:16:23.

$filename = 'somefile.txt';
if (file_exists($filename)) {
    echo "$filename was last changed: " . date("F d Y H:i:s.", filectime($filename));
}

?>

Errors/Exceptions

Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

Notes

Note:
Note: In most Unix filesystems, a file is considered changed when its inode data is changed; that is, when the permissions, owner, group, or other metadata from the inode is updated. See also filemtime() (which is what you want to use when you want to create "Last Modified" footers on web pages) and fileatime().

Note:
Note also that in some Unix texts the ctime of a file is referred to as being the creation time of the file. This is wrong. There is no creation time for Unix files in most Unix filesystems.

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.

User Contributed Notes

StevieMc at example dot com

9 years ago


This method gets all the files in a directory, and echoes them in the order of the date they were added (by ftp or whatever).

<?PHP
function dirList ($directory, $sortOrder){

    //Get each file and add its details to two arrays
    $results = array();
    $handler = opendir($directory);
    while ($file = readdir($handler)) {  
        if ($file != '.' && $file != '..' && $file != "robots.txt" && $file != ".htaccess"){
            $currentModified = filectime($directory."/".$file);
            $file_names[] = $file;
            $file_dates[] = $currentModified;
        }    
    }
       closedir($handler);

    //Sort the date array by preferred order
    if ($sortOrder == "newestFirst"){
        arsort($file_dates);
    }else{
        asort($file_dates);
    }
    
    //Match file_names array to file_dates array
    $file_names_Array = array_keys($file_dates);
    foreach ($file_names_Array as $idx => $name) $name=$file_names[$name];
    $file_dates = array_merge($file_dates);
    
    $i = 0;

    //Loop through dates array and then echo the list
    foreach ($file_dates as $file_dates){
        $date = $file_dates;
        $j = $file_names_Array[$i];
        $file = $file_names[$j];
        $i++;
            
        echo  "File name: $file - Date Added: $date. <br/>"";        
    }

}
?>

I hope this is useful to somebody.

javi at live dot com

7 years ago


Filemtime seems to return the date of the EARLIEST modified file inside a folder, so this is a recursive function to return the date of the LAST (most recently) modified file inside a folder.

<?php

// Only take into account those files whose extensions you want to show.
$allowedExtensions = array(
  'zip',
  'rar',
  'pdf',
  'txt'
);

function filemtime_r($path)
{
    global $allowedExtensions;
    
    if (!file_exists($path))
        return 0;
    
    $extension = end(explode(".", $path));     
    if (is_file($path) && in_array($extension, $allowedExtensions))
        return filemtime($path);
    $ret = 0;
    
     foreach (glob($path."/*") as $fn)
     {
        if (filemtime_r($fn) > $ret)
            $ret = filemtime_r($fn);    
            // This will return a timestamp, you will have to use date().
     }
    return $ret;    
}

?>

chuck dot reeves at gmail dot com

8 years ago


filectime running on windows reading a file from a samba share, will still show the last modified date.

soapergem at gmail dot com

6 years ago


Note that on Windows systems, filectime will show the file creation time, as there is no such thing as "change time" in Windows.

faketruth at yandex dot ru

10 months ago


If you need file creation time on Mac OS X:

<?php
if ($handle = popen('stat -f %B ' . escapeshellarg($filename), 'r')) {
    $btime = trim(fread($handle, 100));
    echo strftime("btime: %Y.%m.%d %H:%M:%S\n", $btime);
    pclose($handle);
}
?>

coolkoon at gmail dot com

5 years ago


You should avoid feeding the function files without a path. This applies for filemtime() and possibly fileatime() as well. If you omit the path the command will fail with the warning "filectime(): stat failed for filename.php".

m dot rabe at directbox dot com