(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5)
stream_get_meta_data — Retrieves header/meta data from streams/file pointers
Returns information about an existing stream.
The stream can be any stream created by fopen(), fsockopen() and pfsockopen().
The result array contains the following items:
timed_out (bool) - TRUE if the stream timed out while waiting for data on the last call to fread() or fgets().
blocked (bool) - TRUE if the stream is in blocking IO mode. See stream_set_blocking().
eof (bool) - TRUE if the stream has reached end-of-file. Note that for socket streams this member can be TRUE even when unread_bytes is non-zero. To determine if there is more data to be read, use feof() instead of reading this item.
unread_bytes (int) - the number of bytes currently contained in the PHP's own internal buffer.
Hinweis: You shouldn't use this value in a script.
stream_type (string) - a label describing the underlying implementation of the stream.
wrapper_type (string) - a label describing the protocol wrapper implementation layered over the stream. See Supported Protocols and Wrappers for more information about wrappers.
wrapper_data (mixed) - wrapper specific data attached to this stream. See Supported Protocols and Wrappers for more information about wrappers and their wrapper data.
filters (array) - and array containing the names of any filters that have been stacked onto this stream. Documentation on filters can be found in the Filters appendix.
mode (string) - the type of access required for this stream (see Table 1 of the fopen() reference)
seekable (bool) - whether the current stream can be seeked.
uri (string) - the URI/filename associated with this stream.
| Version | Beschreibung | 
|---|---|
| 5.0.0 | The following entries were added in the returned array: mode, seekable, and uri. | 
| 4.3.0 | The following entries were added in the returned array: stream_type, wrapper_type, wrapper_data, and filters. | 
| 4.3.0 | socket_get_status() is an alias for this function. Prior to PHP 4.3.0, it was used to retrieve the first four items, for socket based streams only. | 
Beispiel #1 stream_get_meta_data() example
<?php
$url = 'http://www.example.com/';
if (!$fp = fopen($url, 'r')) {
    trigger_error("Unable to open URL ($url)", E_USER_ERROR);
}
$meta = stream_get_meta_data($fp);
print_r($meta);
fclose($fp);
?>
Das oben gezeigte Beispiel erzeugt eine ähnliche Ausgabe wie:
Array
(
    [wrapper_data] => Array
        (
            [0] => HTTP/1.1 200 OK
            [1] => Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)
            [2] => Last-Modified: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:24:10 GMT
            [3] => ETag: "b300b4-1b6-4059a80bfd280"
            [4] => Accept-Ranges: bytes
            [5] => Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
            [6] => Set-Cookie: FOO=BAR; expires=Fri, 21-Dec-2012 12:00:00 GMT; path=/; domain=.example.com
            [6] => Connection: close     
            [7] => Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:00:00 GMT
            [8] => Age: 1164   
            [9] => Content-Length: 438
        )
    [wrapper_type] => http
    [stream_type] => tcp_socket/ssl
    [mode] => r
    [unread_bytes] => 438
    [seekable] => 
    [uri] => http://www.example.com/
    [timed_out] => 
    [blocked] => 1
    [eof] => 
)
Hinweis:
This function does NOT work on sockets created by the Socket extension.
here is just an example how to read out all meta data.
how ever I found out that the "seekable"-entry doesn't exist in most of the streaming media files.
      if (!($fp = @fopen($url, 'r')))
         return NULL;
      $meta = stream_get_meta_data($fp);
      
          foreach(array_keys($meta) as $h){
              $v = $meta[$h];
              echo "".$h.": ".$v."<br/>";
              if(is_array($v)){
                  foreach(array_keys($v) as $hh){
                      $vv = $v[$hh];
                      echo "_".$hh.": ".$vv."<br/>";
                  }
              }
          }
      fclose($fp);
Below is a function I wrote to pull the "Last-Modified" header from a given URL.  In PHP version 4.3 and above, it takes advantage of the stream_get_meta_data function, and in older version it uses a conventional GET procedure.  On failure to connect to $url, it returns NULL.  If the server does not return the Last-Modified header, it returns the current time.  All times are returned in PHP's integer format (seconds since epoch).
Use it as so:
$last_modified = stream_last_modified('http://www.php.net/news.rss');
if (!is_null($last_modified))
   if ($last_modified < time()-3600) //Older than an hour
      echo 'URL is older than an hour.';
   else
      echo 'URL is fairly new.';
else
   echo 'Invalid URL!';
function stream_last_modified($url)
{
   if (function_exists('version_compare') && version_compare(phpversion(), '4.3.0') > 0)
   {
      if (!($fp = @fopen($url, 'r')))
         return NULL;
      $meta = stream_get_meta_data($fp);
      for ($j = 0; isset($meta['wrapper_data'][$j]); $j++)
      {
         if (strstr(strtolower($meta['wrapper_data'][$j]), 'last-modified'))
         {
            $modtime = substr($meta['wrapper_data'][$j], 15);
            break;
         }
      }
      fclose($fp);
   }
   else
   {
      $parts = parse_url($url);
      $host  = $parts['host'];
      $path  = $parts['path'];
      if (!($fp = @fsockopen($host, 80)))
         return NULL;
      $req = "HEAD $path HTTP/1.0\r\nUser-Agent: PHP/".phpversion()."\r\nHost: $host:80\r\nAccept: */*\r\n\r\n";
      fputs($fp, $req);
      while (!feof($fp))
      {
         $str = fgets($fp, 4096);
         if (strstr(strtolower($str), 'last-modified'))
         {
            $modtime = substr($str, 15);
            break;
         }
      }
      fclose($fp);
  }
   return isset($modtime) ? strtotime($modtime) : time();
}