PHP

Getting File Information

You want to read a file's metadata, e.g. permissions and ownership.

Use stat(). It returns an array with both numeric and string indexes with information about a file.

Numeric index	String index	Value
0	dev	Device
1	ino	Inode
2	mode	Permissions expresed as a base 10. Use base_convert() to change the permission to octal.
3	nlink	Link count
4	uid	Owner's user ID
5	gid	Group's group ID
6	rdev	Device type for inode devices (-1 on Windows)
7	size	Size (in bytes)
8	atime	Last access time (epoch timestamp)
9	mtime	Last change time of contents (epoch timestamp)
10	ctime	Last change time of contents or metadata (epoch timestamp)
11	blksize	Block size for I/O (-1 on Windows)
12	blocks	Number of blocks allocated to this file

Because stat() returns an array with both numeric and string indexes, using foreach to iterate through the returned array produces two copies of each value. Instead, use a fo loop from element 0 to element 12 of the returned array.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="EN" lang="EN">
<head>
<title>Adding Parameters to a Cookie</title>
<meta Name="Author" Content="Hann So">
</head>
<body>
<p>
<?php
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="EN" lang="EN">
<head>
<title>Getting File Information</title>
<meta Name="Author" Content="Hann So">
</head>
<body>
<p>
<?php

if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
		process_form();
	}
	else {
		display_form();// display form for the first time
	}

function display_form() {
	echo <<<HTML
	<h2>Getting File Information</h2>
	<form action = "$_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME]" method="post">
	Enter file or directory name:
	<input type="text" name="dir" size="50" value="data" />
	<br />
	<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" />
	</form>
HTML;
}

function process_form() {

	// get the file info
	$info = stat("$_POST[dir]");
	// convert the permissions to understandable format in octal
	$permissions = base_convert($info['mode'], 10, 8);
	$atime = date('F j, Y', $info['atime']);
	$mtime = date('F j, Y', $info['mtime']);
	$ctime = date('F j, Y', $info['ctime']);

	// list the info
	foreach ($info as $key => $value) {
		if (!is_numeric($key)) {
			echo "$key => $value<br />";
		}
	}

	echo "<p>permissions: $permissions<br />";
	echo "atime: $atime<br />";
	echo "mtime: $mtime<br />";
	echo "ctime: $ctime</p>";

	echo "<p><a href=\"$_SERVER[SCRIPT_NAME]\">
	Try again?</a></p>\n";
	echo "<p><a href=\"example_c.php\">
	Do you want to register?</a></p>\n";
	echo "<p><a href=\"example_r.php\">
	Do you want to login?</a></p>\n";
	echo "<p><a href=\"example_n.php\">
	Do you want to navigate?</a></p>\n";
}

?>
</p>
</body>
</html>

View the effect