(PHP 4, PHP 5)
chown — Changes file owner
Attempts to change the owner of the file filename to user user . Only the superuser may change the owner of a file.
Path to the file.
A user name or number.
Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.
Example #1 Simple chown() usage
<?php
// File name and username to use
$file_name= "foo.php";
$path = "/home/sites/php.net/public_html/sandbox" . $file_name ;
$user_name = "root";
// Set the user
chown($path, $user_name);
// Check the result
$stat = stat($path);
print_r(posix_getpwuid($stat['uid']));
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
array(7) {
  ["name"]=>
  string(13) "php.net"
  ["passwd"]=>
  string(1) "x"
  ["uid"]=>
  int(148864)
  ["gid"]=>
  int(148910)
  ["gecos"]=>
  string(13) "php.net"
  ["dir"]=>
  string(25) "/home/sites/php.net"
  ["shell"]=>
  string(13) "/sbin/nologin"
}
Note: This function will not work on remote files as the file to be examined must be accessible via the server's filesystem.
Note: When safe mode is enabled, PHP checks whether the files or directories being operated upon have the same UID (owner) as the script that is being executed.