lstat()

lstat() — Gives information about a file or symbolic link.

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

What it does

Gathers the statistics of the file or symbolic link named by filename.

Signature

lstat(string $filename): array|false

Parameters

Return value

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.

Example

A runnable snippet:

symlink('uploads.php', 'uploads'); // Contrast information for uploads.php and uploads array_diff(stat('uploads'), lstat('uploads'));

Output:

Array ( [ino] => 97236376 [mode] => 33188 [size] => 34 [atime] => 1223580003 [mtime] => 1223581848 [ctime] => 1223581848 [blocks] => 8 )

See also

stat()

All PHP 8.5 built-in functions

Reference card built from the PHP manual page lstat() (PHP documentation, CC BY 3.0). The page is generated from the manual, so the wording of the parameter and return value text follows php.net.