This is a very handy function for dealing with browser caching. For example, say you have a stylesheet and you want to make sure everyone has the most recent version. You could rename it every time you edit it, but that would be a pain in the ass. Instead, you can do this:
<?php
echo '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css?' . filemtime('style.css') . '" />';
?>
Sample output:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css?1203291283" />
By appending a GET value (the UNIX timestamp) to the stylesheet URL, you make the browser think the stylesheet is dynamic, so it'll reload the stylesheet every time the modification date changes.
