(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
lstat — Gives information about a file or symbolic link
Gathers the statistics of the file or symbolic link named by
filename.
filenamePath to a file or a symbolic link.
See the manual page for stat() for information on
the structure of the array that lstat() returns.
This function is identical to the stat() function
except that if the filename parameter is a symbolic
link, the status of the symbolic link is returned, not the status of the
file pointed to by the symbolic link.
On failure, false is returned.
Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.
Example #1 Comparison of stat() and lstat()
<?php
symlink('uploads.php', 'uploads');
// Contrast information for uploads.php and uploads
array_diff(stat('uploads'), lstat('uploads'));
?>The above example will output something similar to:
Information that differs between the two files.
Array
(
[ino] => 97236376
[mode] => 33188
[size] => 34
[atime] => 1223580003
[mtime] => 1223581848
[ctime] => 1223581848
[blocks] => 8
)
Note: The results of this function are cached. See clearstatcache() for more details.
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.