(PECL phar:1.0.0-1.2.1)
PharFileInfo::setMetaData — Sets file-specific meta-data saved with a file
setMetaData() should only be used to store customized data in a file that cannot be represented with existing information stored with a file. Meta-data can significantly slow down the performance of loading a phar archive if the data is large, or if there are many files containing meta-data. It is important to note that file permissions are natively supported inside a phar; it is possible to set them with the PharFileInfo::chmod() method. As with all functionality that modifies the contents of a phar, the phar.readonly INI variable must be off in order to succeed if the file is within a Phar archive. Files within PharData archives do not have this restriction.
Some possible uses for meta-data include passing a user/group that should be set when a file is extracted from the phar to disk. Other uses could include explicitly specifying a MIME type to return. However, any useful data that describes a file, but should not be contained inside of it may be stored.
Any PHP variable containing information to store alongside a file
Example #1 A PharFileInfo::setMetaData() example
<?php
// make sure it doesn't exist
@unlink('brandnewphar.phar');
try {
$p = new Phar(dirname(__FILE__) . '/brandnewphar.phar', 0, 'brandnewphar.phar');
$p['file.txt'] = 'hello';
$p['file.txt']->setMetaData(array('user' => 'bill', 'mime-type' => 'text/plain'));
var_dump($p['file.txt']->getMetaData());
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo 'Could not create/modify phar: ', $e;
}
?>
The above example will output:
array(2) { ["user"]=> string(4) "bill" ["mime-type"]=> string(10) "text/plain" }