remote file moddatetime

I am trying to upload a file using php's ftp functions between two RedHat 7.3 systems. I'd like to make sure the destination file has the same modification date as the source file, so that I can later compare to see if it has been modified on the remote machine, but not sure how to approach this. I tried to use the SITE command to pass a touch command, but that didn't work. Other than the obvious places, where do I go from here? thanks in advance, Warren Vail warren@vailtech.net