In PHP, the **`lstat()`** function is used to return information about a file or a symbolic link. It provides statistics about the particular file provided in the argument. 

# Syntax
```Perl
lstat(string $filename): array|false
```

# Parameters

* **`filename`**: The path to the file or symbolic link as a string.


# Return value

`lstat()` returns an array that includes information on the following elements upon success. It returns `false` on failure.

> Note: This function is similar to `stat()`, except that if the file parameter is a symbolic link, the status of the symlink is returned instead of the status of the file pointed to by the symlink.




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# Code
The code below shows the usage of `lstat()`. It also compares the results of `lstat()` to `stat()`.

<?php
symlink('test.php', 'test');

print_r("\n*****stat*****\n");
print_r(stat('test'));
print_r("\n*****lstat*****\n");
print_r(lstat('test'));

?>

What is the lstat() function in PHP?

Returns file or symlink info in an array; differs from `stat()` by checking symlink status.

Numeric	Associative	Description
0	dev	device number
1	ino	inode number
2	mode	inode protection mode
3	nlink	number of links
4	uid	userid of owner
5	gid	groupid of owner
6	rdev	device type, if inode device
7	size	size in bytes
8	atime	time of last access (Unix timestamp)
9	mtime	time of last modification (Unix timestamp)
10	ctime	time of last inode change (Unix timestamp)
11	blksize	blocksize of filesystem IO
12	blocks	number of 512-byte blocks allocated