How to get last modified information of a file using php?

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

filemtime — Gets file modification time

Description

filemtime(string $filename): int|false

Parameters

Path to the file.

Return Values

Returns the time the file was last modified, or false on failure. The time is returned as a Unix timestamp, which is suitable for the date() function.

Errors/Exceptions

Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

Examples

Example #1 filemtime() example

// outputs e.g.  somefile.txt was last modified: December 29 2002 22:16:23.$filename = 'somefile.txt';
if (file_exists($filename)) {
    echo "$filename was last modified: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", filemtime($filename));
}
?>

Notes

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.

See Also

• filectime() - Gets inode change time of file
• stat() - Gives information about a file
• touch() - Sets access and modification time of file
• getlastmod() - Gets time of last page modification

geeks at geekman dot info ¶

14 years ago

This is a very handy function for dealing with browser caching. For example, say you have a stylesheet and you want to make sure everyone has the most recent version. You could rename it every time you edit it, but that would be a pain in the ass. Instead, you can do this:

echo '';
?>

Sample output:

By appending a GET value (the UNIX timestamp) to the stylesheet URL, you make the browser think the stylesheet is dynamic, so it'll reload the stylesheet every time the modification date changes.

solarijj at gmail dot com ¶

15 years ago

To get the modification date of some remote file, you can use the fine function by notepad at codewalker dot com (with improvements by dma05 at web dot de and madsen at lillesvin dot net).

But you can achieve the same result more easily now with stream_get_meta_data (PHP>4.3.0).

However a problem may arise if some redirection occurs. In such a case, the server HTTP response contains no Last-Modified header, but there is a Location header indicating where to find the file. The function below takes care of any redirections, even multiple redirections, so that you reach the real file of which you want the last modification date.

hih,
JJS.

// get remote file last modification date (returns unix timestamp)
function GetRemoteLastModified( $uri )
{
    // default
    $unixtime = 0;$fp = fopen( $uri, "r" );
    if( !$fp ) {return;}$MetaData = stream_get_meta_data( $fp );

            foreach(

paranoid at dds dot nl ¶

19 years ago

To get the last modification time of a directory, you can use this:

$getLastModDir = filemtime("/path/to/directory/.");

Take note on the last dot which is needed to see the directory as a file and to actually get a last modification date of it.

This comes in handy when you want just one 'last updated' message on the frontpage of your website and still taking all files of your website into account.

Regards,
Frank Keijzers

habazi at yahoo dot com ¶

17 years ago

"this is not (necessarily) correct, the modification time of a directory will be the time of the last file *creation* in a directory (and not in it's sub directories)."

This is not (necessarily) correct either. In *nix the timestamp can be independently set. For example the command "touch directory" updates the timestamp of a directory without file creation.

Also file removal will update the timestamp of a directory.

myselfasunder at gmail dot XYZ dot com ¶

11 years ago

There's a deeply-seated problem with filemtime() under Windows due to the fact that it calls Windows' stat() function, which implements DST (according to this bug: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=40568). The detection of DST on the time of the file is confused by whether the CURRENT time of the current system is currently under DST.

This is a fix for the mother of all annoying bugs:

function GetCorrectMTime($filePath)
{ $time = filemtime($filePath); $isDST = (date('I', $time) == 1);
    $systemDST = (date('I') == 1); $adjustment = 0;

    if(

erelsgl at gmail dot com ¶

12 years ago

Cheaper and dirtier way to code a cache:

$cache_file = 'URI to cache file';
$cache_life = '120'; //caching time, in seconds$filemtime = @filemtime($cache_file);  // returns FALSE if file does not exist
if (!$filemtime or (time() - $filemtime >= $cache_life)){
    ob_start();
    resource_consuming_function();
    file_put_contents($cache_file,ob_get_flush());
}else{
    readfile($cache_file);
}
?>

Anonymous ¶

17 years ago

A comment below states

  "When using this function to get the modified date of a directory,
   it returns the date of the file in that directory that was last modified."

this is not (necessarily) correct, the modification time of a directory will be the time of the last file *creation* in a directory (and not in it's sub directories).

wookie at at no-way dot org ¶

19 years ago

Another little handy tool; to get the most recent modified time from files in a directory. It even does recursive directories if you set the $doRecursive param to true. Based on a file/directory list function I saw somewhere on this site. ;)

function mostRecentModifiedFileTime($dirName,$doRecursive) {
    $d = dir($dirName);
    $lastModified = 0;
    while($entry = $d->read()) {
        if ($entry != "." && $entry != "..") {
            if (!is_dir($dirName."/".$entry)) {
                $currentModified = filemtime($dirName."/".$entry);
            } else if ($doRecursive && is_dir($dirName."/".$entry)) {
                $currentModified = mostRecentModifiedFileTime($dirName."/".$entry,true);
            }
            if ($currentModified > $lastModified){
                $lastModified = $currentModified;
            }
        }
    }
    $d->close();
    return $lastModified;
}

adam at roomvoter dot com ¶

18 years ago

The snippet of code earlier that allows you to delete all files older than 2 weeks uses the function (filemtime) - which checks the original create date of the file (filesystem independent).  You MAY want to use filectime() - that looks at when the file was last changed on YOUR file system.

        if (is_dir("$path") )
        {
           $handle=opendir($path);
           while (false!==($file = readdir($handle))) {
               if ($file != "." && $file != "..") { 
                   $Diff = (time() - filectime("$path/$file"))/60/60/24;
                   if ($Diff > 14) unlink("$path/$file");

               }
           }
           closedir($handle);
        }

Will Davies Vasconcelos ¶

11 years ago

Here is a handy script to create a csv file with file names and the date when files in a given folder were inserted:

  header("Pragma: public");
  header("Cache-Control: private");
  header("Content-Type: text/csv");
  header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=age-of-files.csv");$result = array();
  $handle =  opendir(".");
     while ($datei = readdir($handle))
     {
          if (($datei != '.') && ($datei != '..'))
          {
               $file = "./".$datei;
               if (!is_dir($file))
                    $result[] = $file;
          }
     }
     closedir($handle);
  foreach($result as $r)
    if (file_exists($r))
      echo substr($r,2).",".date ("m/d/Y", filemtime($r))."\r\n";
?>

notepad at codewalkers dot com ¶

17 years ago

i needed the ability to grab the mod time of an image on a remote site. the following is the solution with the help of Joe Ferris.

function filemtime_remote($uri)
{
    $uri = parse_url($uri);
    $handle = @fsockopen($uri['host'],80);
    if(!$handle)
        return 0;fputs($handle,"GET $uri[path] HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $uri[host]\r\n\r\n");
    $result = 0;
    while(!feof($handle))
    {
        $line = fgets($handle,1024);
        if(!trim($line))
            break;$col = strpos($line,':');
        if($col !== false)
        {
            $header = trim(substr($line,0,$col));
            $value = trim(substr($line,$col+1));
            if(strtolower($header) == 'last-modified')
            {
                $result = strtotime($value);
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    fclose($handle);
    return $result;
}
// echo filemtime_remote('http://www.somesite.com/someimage.jpg');?>

Don ¶

7 years ago

To find the oldest file in a directory :
$directory= "C:\\";

$smallest_time=INF;

$oldest_file='';

if ($handle = opendir($directory)) {

    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {

        $time=filemtime($directory.'/'.$file);

        if (is_file($directory.'/'.$file)) {

            if ($time < $smallest_time) {
                $oldest_file = $file;
                $smallest_time = $time;
            }
        }
    }
    closedir($handle);
}

echo $oldest_file;

_michael ¶

12 years ago

While testing on Windows, I noticed that the precision of filemtime is just 1 second.

So if you use clearstatcache() and filemtime() to check if a file has been modified, it might fail to detect the change. The modifications just have to happen within less than a second.

(I ran into this with Apache on Windows XP.)

info at daniel-marschall dot de ¶

13 years ago

It could be useful to determinate the timestamp of the newest file in a directory. (e.g. if you want to find out when the last change was made to your project).

Following function will help you:

function getAllFiles($directory, $recursive = true) {
     $result = array();
     $handle =  opendir($directory);
     while ($datei = readdir($handle))
     {
          if (($datei != '.') && ($datei != '..'))
          {
               $file = $directory.$datei;
               if (is_dir($file)) {
                    if ($recursive) {
                         $result = array_merge($result, getAllFiles($file.'/'));
                    }
               } else {
                    $result[] = $file;
               }
          }
     }
     closedir($handle);
     return $result;
}

function

dma05 at web dot de ¶

17 years ago

concerning "notepad at codewalkers dot com"'s code:

this code is pretty neat, but i just wanted to note that using the "HEAD"-method instead of the "GET"-method in the http-request might be preferrable, since then not the whole resource is being downloaded...

http/1.1 definiton snippet:
Section "9.4 HEAD"

The HEAD method is identical to GET except that the server MUST NOT return a message-body in the response. The metainformation contained in the HTTP headers in response to a HEAD request SHOULD be identical to the information sent in response to a GET request. This method can be used for obtaining metainformation about the entity implied by the request without transferring the entity-body itself. This method is often used for testing hypertext links for validity, accessibility, and recent modification. [...]
-- snippet end ---

the code would then be...:

-- snippet ---
fputs($handle,"HEAD $uri[path] HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: $uri[host]\r\n\r\n");
-- snippet end ---

regards, Magnus

jay at fudge dot org ¶

23 years ago

If you want this functionality for the parent web page you should use getlastmod()
i.e.
echo "Last modified: ".date( "F d Y H:i:s.", getlastmod() ); ?>
within the included page... i.e. as a commont footer include for all pages

csnyder at chxo dot com ¶

16 years ago

If PHP's integer type is only 32 bits on your system, filemtime() will fail on files over 2GB with the warning "stat failed". All stat()-related commands will exhibit the same behavior.

As a workaround, you can call the system's stat command to get the modification time of a file:

On FreeBSD:
$mtime = exec ('stat -f %m '. escapeshellarg ($path));

On Linux:
$mtime = exec ('stat -c %Y '. escapeshellarg ($path));

Thanks to "mpb dot mail at gmail dot com" for his/her similar comment on stat().

dagger80 ¶

12 years ago

Also on 32-bit systems, filemtime() also does not work for files with modification time set beyond Jan 2038. It is the dreaded time_t overflow bug for unix seconds.

On windows you can set the system time to any arbitrary future date, and any new files you created or edited will automatically change to that future date.

If exec isn't permitted for some reason, and if you could access the file via an web url (e.g. http://localhost/yourfile.txt), another workaround is to get the Last-Modified time from the HTTP headers (e.g. get_headers(url) ), and parse it as a DateTime object.

I have tested it and it works for years like 2050 and 3012.

Nilo ¶

12 years ago

Cheap and dirty way to code a cache:

$cache_file = 'URI to cache file';
$cache_life = '120'; //caching time, in secondsif (!file_exists($cache_file) or (time() - filemtime($cache_file) >= $cache_life)){
    ob_start();
    resource_consuming_function();
    file_put_contents($cache_file,ob_get_flush());
}else{
    readfile($cache_file);
}
?>

Benan Tumkaya (benantumkaya at yahoo) ¶

16 years ago

Here is a small but handy script that you can use to find which files in your server are modified after a  date/time that you specify. This script will go through all folders in the specified directory recursively and echo the modified files with the last modified date/time...

//Starts Here
//Put here the directory you want to search for. Put / if you want to search your entire domain
$dir='/';

//Put the date you want to compare with in the format of:  YYYY-mm-dd hh:mm:ss
$comparedatestr="2006-08-12 00:00:00";
$comparedate=strtotime($comparedatestr);

//I run the function here to start the search.
directory_tree($dir,$comparedate);

//This is the function which is doing the search...
function directory_tree($address,$comparedate){

@$dir = opendir($address);

  if(!$dir){ return 0; }
        while($entry = readdir($dir)){
                if(is_dir("$address/$entry") && ($entry != ".." && $entry != ".")){                            
                        directory_tree("$address/$entry",$comparedate);
                }
                 else   {

                  if($entry != ".." && $entry != ".") {

                                      $fulldir=$address.'/'.$entry;
                    $last_modified = filemtime($fulldir);
                    $last_modified_str= date("Y-m-d h:i:s", $last_modified);

                       if($comparedate < $last_modified)  {
                          echo $fulldir.'=>'.$last_modified_str;
                          echo "
";
                       }

                 }

            }

      }

}

nieprzeklinaj at gmail dot com ¶

9 years ago

Here's a handy little function for smart cache overriding :)
function img($src, $alt='', $attr='')
{
    if(file_exists($src))
    {
        $lmod = filemtime($src);
        echo '.$alt.'" '.$attr.' />';
    }
}
?>

Anonymous ¶

13 years ago

Please note that many of the functions below that people have provided to get files modified after a certain time in a directory will NOT get all files on a Windows operating system.

If you copy and paste any file inside the folder or into the folder from another folder (such as images that may be used but aren't going to be modified right away), the modified time is not updated on these copied files, only the creation time.

You need to use filectime with filemtime to assure you get copied files that aren't modified but are obviously new.

gerardj at home dot com ¶

23 years ago

The above code works fine if you place it on each page you want a date stamp on.  I've found that if you place a reference such as filemtime(__FILE__) in an included or required file, that the modification time of the inherited file will be returned, not the time of the file that did the ineriting.

contacto at hardcode dot com dot ar ¶

13 years ago

when working with swf files (flash animations), there is a nice way to avoid the browser cache. i used to do this by hand, then i used a random number, but with large animations while working online, it gets boring because the server always downloads the whole animation, even if there was no change.
but...

this will do the trick

base.swf?rand=echo filemtime("base.swf") ?>

) ?>" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="1680" height="1050">

tobias ¶

9 years ago

The mentioned example:

$filename = 'somefile.txt';
if (file_exists($filename)) {
    echo "$filename wurde zuletzt modifiziert:: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", filemtime($filename));
}

works, however is not ideal from a performance point of view of serving static files through PHP, since it basically needs two perform two file system operations (file_exists and filemtime). A more effective way would be to only use filemtime and save the overhead of file_exists using:

$filename = 'somefile.txt';
$fmtime = filemtime($filename);
if (!$fmtime) {
    echo "$filename wurde zuletzt modifiziert:: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", $fmtime);
}

MarkAgius at markagius dot co dot uk ¶

1 year ago

filemtime(..) only works with files on your server.
$T=filesize("index.php"); // Works.
$T=filesize("/public_html/dir/index.php"); // Works.

But the following will not work.
$T=filesize("https://mydomain.com/dir/index.php"); // Will not work. Same domain but using web address.
$T=filesize("https://otherdomain.com/dir/index.php"); // Other domain, will not work.

To get file date for other sites try:
(Note: Time zone may be in G.M.T. and not your local timezone)

$T = getFileDate("https://mydomain.com/dir/index.php");
$T = getFileDate("https://otherdomain.com/dir/index.php");

function getFileDate($filePath){
  // Same as filemtime(..) but also works with remote files.
  // EG. = print date("j/m/Y, g:i:sa (e)",getFileDate("https://abc.com/file.jpg"));
  // File not found then will return -307756800 ( 1/04/1960)
  $ret = -(3562 *24*60*60); //  1/04/1960  3562= seconds to 1/01/1970

  $ch = curl_init($filePath);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_NOBODY, true);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
  // Try and get the file modification date.
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILETIME, true);
  $result = curl_exec($ch);
  if($result===false){
    die(curl_error($ch));
    return $ret;
  }

  $ret = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_FILETIME);
  curl_close($ch);

  return $ret;
}

Steve GS ¶

2 years ago

If the file is not in the same directory as the executing script, a failure will result unless you use $_SERVER.  This is because, like file_exists(), the command works on a file system, not via HTTP.  So this will NOT work properly (and will probably show a warning):

echo '

but this will:

echo '

The second script above will ensure any updated image is guaranteed to replace its predecessor without forcing the browser to reload the image on every visit.

arkadia81 at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago

A little amendment to "tobias" post:

Insted of:
$filename = 'somefile.txt';
$fmtime = filemtime($filename);
if (!$fmtime) {
     echo "$filename wurde zuletzt modifiziert:: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", $fmtime);
}

it should be something like this:
$filename = 'somefile.txt';
$fmtime = filemtime($filename);
if ($fmtime != false) {
     echo "$filename wurde zuletzt modifiziert:: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", $fmtime);
}

filemtime() returns false on failure so in the first example it will never display the date modified.

son9ne at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago

If you do use:
$filename = 'somefile.txt';
$fmtime = filemtime($filename);
if (!$fmtime) {
    echo "$filename wurde zuletzt modifiziert:: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", $fmtime);
}
?>

Make note that it will throw a warning as the documentation states. While tobias makes a good point for production, when error reporting is off, this can increase your performance over using `file_exists`. However, if error reporting is on and it's writing to a log... this is not the case. Obviously this varies on sever specs and the size of the error log. For most cases, it's still ideal to use the `file_exists` method.