The following code fragment should be self-explanatory

$dbtime=date("d-m-Y", filemtime("/var/lib/mysql/sample/DBase.ISD"));
print "(Databases last updated: " . $dbtime . ")\n"

Recently I moved the script to another machine, where the file named
in filemtime did not exist.

The result:

(Databases last updated: 01-01-1970)

No big deal.  But maybe date() should respond to whatever
filemtime() returns ( "false" according to the man page) with
an error message.

Cheers,
  Seth