PHP | fileatime() Function

Hello folks! welcome back to a new edition of our tutorial on PHP. In this tutorial guide, we are going to be studying about the PHP fileatime() Function.

The built-in PHP fileatime() function returns the last access time of the specified file.

Syntax

Following below is the syntax to use this function -

int fileatime ( string $filename )

READ: PHP | file() Function

Note: The result of this function has being cached. We can use the clearstatcache() function to clear the cache.

The access time of the file can be changed whenever the data block in the file is read. Systems running on Unix operating system turn off access time update because when an application frequently accesses a large number of files, it can affect performance. So turning off access time update improves the performance of such applications.

Return Value

This function returns the last access time as Unix timestamp on success, or false on failure.

Example1

Try out the below example -

<?php
   echo fileatime("/PhpProject/sample.txt");
   echo "\n";
   echo "Last access: ".date("F d Y H:i:s.",fileatime("/PhpProject/sample.txt"));
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

1590217956
Last access: May 23 2020 09:12:36.

Example2

Try out the below example -

<?php
   $filename = "/PhpProject/sample.txt";
   if(file_exists($filename)) {
      echo "$filename was last accessed at: " . date("F d Y H:i:s.", fileatime($filename));
   }
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

/PhpProject/sample.txt was last accessed at: May 23 2020 09:12:36.

READ: PHP | file_get_contents() Function

Alright guys! This is where we are rounding up for this tutorial post. In our next tutorial guide, we are going to be discussing about the PHP filectime() Function.

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Thanks for reading and bye for now.