filesize() to return size of symlink rather than the target file size

[RV7PR]

Description

filesize() returns false on symlink with warning: filesize(): stat failed for {filename}
I have to use lstat($symlink)['size'] to get size of a symlink

PHP Version

PHP 8.3.8

Operating System

CentOS Stream release 9

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Edit by @cmb69: see #3598 (comment) for the latest suggestion to improve the documentation.

[devnexen]

I cannot reproduce with php 8.3.6 nor with 8.3.8, would you have a reproducer or give more details regarding your case ?

[RV7PR]

I also have this issue on another server with centos 7 and php 8.3.8.
It's just a symlink created using symlink() that I want to delete after I get the size.

[devnexen]

There might be more to it. e.g. are you getting a symlink from a shared (virtualised ?) folder ? network mountpoint ?

[RV7PR]

Nope it's a symlink to a file in the same folder.
But it might be that the target file is deleted before the symlink itself.

[devnexen]

It might thus

would you have a reproducer or give more details regarding your case ?

[RV7PR]

$file = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), '');
$symlink = $file . '.symlink';
symlink('./' . basename($file), $symlink);
unlink($file);
var_dump(filesize($symlink));

[devnexen]

sure ... looking at php_stat, it seems to behave "as expected', now I m torn between bug and "feature request to change longtime behavior".

[RV7PR]

Yeah I didn't expect it to behave like this, I thought filesize would show size of the file supplied and not the target file of a symlink, would've made more sense to do filesize(realpath()) if target file size was needed🤔

Well probably because in most cases filesize of a symlink would be irrelevant😅

[bukka]

I don't think we can change this. I would not consider it as a bug. This would require RFC to get changed.

[cmb69]

@RV7PR, are you interested in pursuing the RFC process?

[RV7PR]

@cmb69 Not really... maybe we should just add a note for filesize() and SplFileInfo::getSize() specifiying that it always uses the target file of a symlink and if the filesize is needed for a symlink that lstat()['size'] should be used and that if target file does not exists anymore it generates a warning.

[cmb69]

Well, I'm fine with transferring this to doc-en (so the documentation could be updated). Any objections?

[RV7PR]

I'm okay with that