file
filectime
Filesystem Functions
PHP Manual

# fileatime

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

fileatime — Gets last access time of file

### Description

int fileatime ( string `$filename` )

Gets the last access time of the given file.

### Parameters

`filename`

  Path to the file.

### Return Values

Returns the time the file was last accessed, or `FALSE` in case of an error. The time is returned as a Unix timestamp.

### Examples

Example #1 fileatime() example

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

### Notes

> Note: The atime of a file is supposed to change whenever the data blocks of a file are being read. This can be costly performance-wise when an application regularly accesses a very large number of files or directories.
> Some Unix filesystems can be mounted with atime updates disabled to increase the performance of such applications; USENET news spools are a common example. On such filesystems this function will be useless.

> 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 List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a listing of which wrappers support stat() family of functionality.

### See Also

- filemtime() - Gets file modification time
- fileinode() - Gets file inode
- date() - Format a local time/date

file
filectime
Filesystem Functions
PHP Manual