PHP script to loop through all of the files in a directory?

Question

I'm looking for a PHP script that loops through all of the files in a directory so I can do things with the filename, such as format, print or add it to a link. I'd like to be able to sort the files by name, type or by date created/added/modified. (Think fancy directory "index".) I'd also like to be able to add exclusions to the list of files, such as the script itself or other "system" files. (Like the . and .. "directories".)

Being that I'd like to be able to modify the script, I'm more interested in looking at the PHP docs and learning how to write one myself. That said, if there are any existing scripts, tutorials and whatnot, please let me know.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1086105/get-the-files-inside-a-directory/1086110#1086110 — zloctb, Oct 28 '15 at 12:05

score 292 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 17 '10 at 07:15

292

You can use the DirectoryIterator. Example from php Manual:

<?php
$dir = new DirectoryIterator(dirname(__FILE__));
foreach ($dir as $fileinfo) {
    if (!$fileinfo->isDot()) {
        var_dump($fileinfo->getFilename());
    }
}
?>

answered Nov 17 '10 at 07:15

3

Note: many servers don't have SPL installed, so you won't be able to use the DirectoryIterator class (see my alternative post below). Use this if you can though! – NexusRex Apr 11 '11 at 23:23
7

Note[2]: Make sure you understand that the ``dirname()`` function above will get the parent folder of whatever path you put there. In my case, I assumed dirname was a wrapper for the directory name/path, so it was not needed. – willdanceforfun Mar 03 '16 at 11:38
Also, if dirname it's a large filesystem, problems with memory are evident. On my case with 1 millons of files, app needs ~512M ram on memory_limit. – abkrim Nov 22 '16 at 08:30
2

If you need the complete path like `/home/examples/banana.jpg` use `$fileinfo->getPathname()` – mgutt Mar 24 '17 at 08:33
1

You can use !$fileinfo->isDir() to avoid action on directories – LeChatNoir Apr 30 '17 at 08:45
How does this example work? Does "DirectoryIterator(dirname(__FILE__))" search the entire folder hierarchy on a server? If so isn't that going to perform super slow? – Eight Lives Apr 27 '22 at 03:02

score 51 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 11 '11 at 23:20

51

If you don't have access to DirectoryIterator class try this:

<?php
$path = "/path/to/files";

if ($handle = opendir($path)) {
    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
        if ('.' === $file) continue;
        if ('..' === $file) continue;

        // do something with the file
    }
    closedir($handle);
}
?>

answered Apr 11 '11 at 23:20

NexusRex

2,152
17
14

4

Can you name a situation where you wouldn't have access to it? – Jochem Kuijpers Dec 29 '13 at 01:40
12

A lot of legacy applications use PHP 4, which has no access to the DirectoryIterator. – Joseph Callaars Mar 20 '14 at 14:02
1

Why '.' === $file? This isn't Java. – Dave Heq Aug 07 '17 at 20:01
2

Dave... Nope it is matching the dots and does not continue if it doesn't match in PHP. Search for the difference between == and ===. – JSG Jul 31 '19 at 17:26

score 39 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 03 '19 at 17:44

39

Use the scandir() function:

<?php
    $directory = '/path/to/files';

    if (!is_dir($directory)) {
        exit('Invalid diretory path');
    }

    $files = array();
    foreach (scandir($directory) as $file) {
        if ($file !== '.' && $file !== '..') {
            $files[] = $file;
        }
    }

    var_dump($files);
?>

edited Sep 03 '19 at 17:44

Pere

1,647
3
27
52

answered Nov 17 '10 at 07:12

ChorData

523
3
4

Julian · Answer 4 · 2019-07-29T07:03:05.103

You can also make use of FilesystemIterator. It requires even less code then DirectoryIterator, and automatically removes . and ...

// Let's traverse the images directory
$fileSystemIterator = new FilesystemIterator('images');

$entries = array();
foreach ($fileSystemIterator as $fileInfo){
    $entries[] = $fileInfo->getFilename();
}

var_dump($entries);

//OUTPUT
object(FilesystemIterator)[1]

array (size=14)
  0 => string 'aa[1].jpg' (length=9)
  1 => string 'Chrysanthemum.jpg' (length=17)
  2 => string 'Desert.jpg' (length=10)
  3 => string 'giphy_billclinton_sad.gif' (length=25)
  4 => string 'giphy_shut_your.gif' (length=19)
  5 => string 'Hydrangeas.jpg' (length=14)
  6 => string 'Jellyfish.jpg' (length=13)
  7 => string 'Koala.jpg' (length=9)
  8 => string 'Lighthouse.jpg' (length=14)
  9 => string 'Penguins.jpg' (length=12)
  10 => string 'pnggrad16rgb.png' (length=16)
  11 => string 'pnggrad16rgba.png' (length=17)
  12 => string 'pnggradHDrgba.png' (length=17)
  13 => string 'Tulips.jpg' (length=10)

Link: http://php.net/manual/en/class.filesystemiterator.php

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 26 '20 at 01:27

6

You can use this code to loop through a directory recursively:

$path = "/home/myhome";
$rdi = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($path, RecursiveDirectoryIterator::KEY_AS_PATHNAME);
foreach (new RecursiveIteratorIterator($rdi, RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST) as $file => $info) {
    echo $file."\n";
}

edited Mar 26 '20 at 01:27

Chris McFarland

6,059
5
43
63

answered Nov 24 '16 at 08:38

GameScripting

16,092
13
59
98

score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 17 '10 at 09:39

4

glob() has provisions for sorting and pattern matching. Since the return value is an array, you can do most of everything else you need.

answered Nov 17 '10 at 09:39

bcosca

17,371
5
40
51

2

This is good unless you are dealing with a lot of files... > 10,000. You'll run out of memory. – NexusRex Apr 11 '11 at 23:21
@NexusRex: You shouldn't be reading 10,000 records from a database either, but that's out of scope as far as the question is concerned – bcosca Apr 12 '11 at 02:25
Agreed! If reading from a database you can paginate with "limit" though—no such luck when you have a directory with 5 million XML files to iterate through. – NexusRex Apr 12 '11 at 05:15
There is SPL GlobIterator. – przemo_li Sep 05 '17 at 11:11
This is awesome for the correct use. In my case I want to purge the downloads folder each night for a small company website. I want to be able to have subdirectories in the downloads folder and this is the solution I was looking for. Thanks for posting! – Jon Vote Mar 26 '21 at 04:13

Zombo · Answer 7 · 2021-08-31T14:25:05.967

4

Most of the time I imagine you want to skip . and ... Here is that with recursion:

<?php

$rdi = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator('.', FilesystemIterator::SKIP_DOTS);
$rii = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($rdi);

foreach ($rii as $di) {
   echo $di->getFilename(), "\n";
}

https://php.net/class.recursivedirectoryiterator

edited Aug 31 '21 at 14:25

answered Aug 09 '20 at 20:15

Zombo

1
62
391
407

Sz. · Answer 8 · 2018-09-19T18:46:32.057

2

For completeness (since this seems to be a high-traffic page), let's not forget the good old dir() function:

$entries = [];
$d = dir("/"); // dir to scan
while (false !== ($entry = $d->read())) { // mind the strict bool check!
    if ($entry[0] == '.') continue; // ignore anything starting with a dot
    $entries[] = $entry;
}
$d->close();
sort($entries); // or whatever desired

print_r($entries);

edited Sep 19 '18 at 18:46

answered Sep 19 '18 at 18:33

Sz.

3,342
1
30
43

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 19 '21 at 06:57

you can do this as well

$path = "/public";

$objects = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($path), RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST);

foreach ($objects as $name => $object) {
  if ('.' === $object) continue;
  if ('..' === $object) continue;

str_replace('/public/', '/', $object->getPathname());

// for example : /public/admin/image.png => /admin/image.png

PHP script to loop through all of the files in a directory?

9 Answers9

Linked

Related