... PHP 3 <= 3.0.18, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0) clearstatcache -- Clears file stat cache . ... Invoking the stat or lstat system call on most systems is quite expensive. Therefore, the result of the last call to any of the status functions (listed below) is stored for use on the next such call using the same filename. If you wish to force a new status check, for instance if the file is being checked many times and may change or disappear, use this function to clear the results of the last call from memory. ...