Getting File Creation Time

[penguindark]

The documentation says it's easy enough ... filectime(). However, when I use it I always get the current time!

I browse to find the file using getfile.php and then upload using uploadfile.php. In the upload file I try to get the file creation time using filectime(), but, like I said, I always get the current time. I have also tried filemtime() with the same results.

What am I doing wrong?

GETFILE.PHP

<form enctype="multipart/form-data" name="frmUploadFile" action="uploadfile.php" method="post">
<td>
 File Location:
</td>
<td >
  <input type="file" name="fileUpload" size="20"></font>
</td>
</form>

UPLOADFILE.PHP

<?
global $fileUpload;

if (file_exists($fileUpload)) {
   echo "$fileUpload was last modified: " . date ("F d Y H:i:s.", filectime($fileUpload));
}

?>

[bradgrafelman]

Well, that's because file uploads don't preserve creation/modification times. Therefore, you're obvioulsy getting the current time because... that's when the file was created/modified!

The only way you're going to have a chance at preserving such times is using FTP to upload the files to a server that is both capable of setting the times and also allows this feature.

[Weedpacket]

After all, the uploaded file on your server isn't the same file as the one on the client - it's a (freshly-created) copy.