PHP Manual . Prev . Next . PHP 3 <= 3.0.18, PHP 4 >= 4.0.0) fileowner -- Gets file owner . int fileowner ( string filename) . Returns the user ID of the owner of the file, or FALSE in case of an error. The user ID is returned in numerical format, use posix_getpwuid() to resolve it to a username. The results of this function are cached. ... This function will not work on remote files ; the file to be examined must be accessible via the server's filesystem. ...