fileatime

Gets last access time of file

&reftitle.description; ``int``false```fileatime` `string` `filename`

Gets the last access time of the given file.

&reftitle.parameters;

`filename`

- Path to the file.

&reftitle.returnvalues;

Returns the time the file was last accessed, &return.falseforfailure;. The time is returned as a Unix timestamp.

&reftitle.errors; &fs.emits.warning.on.failure;
&reftitle.examples;

### `fileatime` example

    <?php

    // outputs e.g.  somefile.txt was last accessed: December 29 2002 22:16:23.

    $filename = 'somefile.txt';
    if (file_exists($filename)) {
        echo "$filename was last accessed: " . date("F d Y H:i:s.", fileatime($filename));
    }

    ?>

&reftitle.notes;

The atime of a file is supposed to change whenever the data blocks of a file are being read. This can be costly performance-wise when an application regularly accesses a very large number of files or directories.

Some Unix filesystems can be mounted with atime updates disabled to increase the performance of such applications; USENET news spools are a common example. On such filesystems this function will be useless.

¬e.filesystem-time-res; ¬e.clearstatcache; &tip.fopen-wrapper.stat;
&reftitle.seealso;

- `filemtime`
- `fileinode`
- `date`