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) . "<br>";
}

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