Using PHP filemtime to Retrieve File Modification Time

PHP's filemtime function returns the last modification timestamp of a file when given its path.

To use it, assign the file path to a variable and call filemtime($file_path) , then format the timestamp with date() for readable output.

$file_path = 'path/to/file.txt';
$modification_time = filemtime($file_path);
echo "File last modified: " . date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $modification_time);

The article also shows how to process multiple files by storing their paths in an array, iterating with foreach , retrieving each file's modification time, and printing the filename with basename() and formatted date.

$files = array(
    'path/to/file1.txt',
    'path/to/file2.txt',
    'path/to/file3.txt'
);
foreach ($files as $file_path) {
    $modification_time = filemtime($file_path);
    echo "File '" . basename($file_path) . "' last modified: " . date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $modification_time) . "
";
}

These examples demonstrate retrieving and displaying modification times for single or multiple files, helping developers understand and apply the filemtime function in PHP projects.