# filemtime

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

filemtime — Gets file modification time

### Description

int filemtime ( string `$filename` )

This function returns the time when the data blocks of a file were being written to, that is, the time when the content of the file was changed.

### Parameters

`filename`

  Path to the file.

### Return Values

Returns the time the file was last modified, or `FALSE` in case of an error. The time is returned as a Unix timestamp, which is suitable for the date() function.

### Examples

Example#1 filemtime() example

`<?php
// 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: 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

- filectime()
- stat()
- touch()
- getlastmod()