This is a function that selects files from a directory and orders them by the last time they were changed, in ascending or descending order. The snippet also calculates how much time passed since the file’s content was changed.

function Sort_Directory_Files_By_Last_Modified($dir, $sort_type = 'descending', $date_format = "F d Y H:i:s.")
{
$files = scandir($dir);

$array = array();

foreach($files as $file)
{
	if($file != '.' && $file != '..')
	{
		$now = time();
		$last_modified = filemtime($dir.$file);

		$time_passed_array = array();

		$diff = $now - $last_modified;

		$days = floor($diff / (3600 * 24));

		if($days)
		{
		$time_passed_array['days'] = $days;
		}

		$diff = $diff - ($days * 3600 * 24);

		$hours = floor($diff / 3600);

		if($hours)
		{
		$time_passed_array['hours'] = $hours;
		}

		$diff = $diff - (3600 * $hours);

		$minutes = floor($diff / 60);

		if($minutes)
		{
		$time_passed_array['minutes'] = $minutes;
		}

		$seconds = $diff - ($minutes * 60);

		$time_passed_array['seconds'] = $seconds;

	$array[] = array('file'         => $file,
		             'timestamp'    => $last_modified,
		             'date'         => date ($date_format, $last_modified),
		             'time_passed'  => $time_passed_array);
	}
}

usort($array, create_function('$a, $b', 'return strcmp($a["timestamp"], $b["timestamp"]);'));

if($sort_type == 'descending')
{
krsort($array);
}

return array($array, $sort_type);
}

Here’s an usage example of this function:

$dir  = '/home/public_html/my_directory/';

$array = Sort_Directory_Files_By_Last_Modified($dir);

// Info Array
$info = $array[0];

// Sort Type
$sort_type = $array[1];

echo '<h3>'.$dir.'</h3>';

echo 'Order by: Last Modified ('.$sort_type.')<br />';

foreach($info as $key => $detail)
{
	echo '<h4 style="color: #3B4F9F;">'.$detail['file'].'</h4>';

	echo 'Last Modified: '.$detail['date'].'<br />';

	$time_passed = '';

	foreach($detail['time_passed'] as $type => $value)
	{
	$time_passed .= $value." ".$type.", ";
	}

	$time_passed = "<span style='color: #377420;'>".rtrim($time_passed, ", ")."</span> ago";

	echo $time_passed."nn";

}

NOTE: If you are using a PHP Version lower than 5, replace the code from the 3rd line (function file):

$files = scandir($dir);

with this one:

$dh  = opendir($dir);
$files = array();
while (false !== ($filename = readdir($dh)))
{
    $files[] = $filename;
}

This is a PHP4 alternative to scandir().

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