stat

Return Values

stat and fstat result format

Numeric	Associative	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.

*** On Windows, as of PHP 7.4.0, this is the serial number of the volume that contains the file, which is a 64-bit unsigned integer, so may overflow. Previously, it was the numeric representation of the drive letter (e.g. 2 for C:) for stat, and 0 for lstat.

**** On Windows, as of PHP 7.4.0, this is the identifier associated with the file, which is a 64-bit unsigned integer, so may overflow. Previously, it was always 0.

***** On Windows, the writable permission bit is set according to the read-only file attribute, and the same value is reported for all users, group and owner. The ACL is not taken into account, contrary to is_writable.

The value of mode contains information read by several functions. When written in octal, starting from the right, the first three digits are returned by chmod. The next digit is ignored by PHP. The next two digits indicate the file type:

mode file types

mode in octal	Meaning
0140000	socket
0120000	link
0100000	regular file
0060000	block device
0040000	directory
0020000	character device
0010000	fifo

So for example a regular file could be 0100644 and a directory could be 0040755.

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.

<?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'];
?>

<?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...';
    }
}
?>