dir

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

dirReturn an instance of the Directory class

Description

dir(string $directory, ?resource $context = null): Directory|false

A pseudo-object-oriented mechanism for reading a directory. The given directory is opened.

Parameters

directory

Directory to open

context

A context stream resource.

Return Values

Returns an instance of Directory, or false in case of error.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 context is now nullable.

Examples

Example #1 dir() example

Please note the fashion in which Directory::read()'s return value is checked in the example below. We are explicitly testing whether the return value is identical to (equal to and of the same type as - see Comparison Operators for more information) false since otherwise, any directory entry whose name evaluates to false will stop the loop.

<?php
$d
= dir("/etc/php5");
echo
"Handle: " . $d->handle . "\n";
echo
"Path: " . $d->path . "\n";
while (
false !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
echo
$entry."\n";
}
$d->close();
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Handle: Resource id #2
Path: /etc/php5
.
..
apache
cgi
cli

Notes

Note:

The order in which directory entries are returned by the read method is system-dependent.

add a note

User Contributed Notes 6 notes

up
8
synnus at gmail dot com
3 years ago
<?php

// simple juste use FilesystemIterator
// and you can skip dot and duble dot
// and use it in array
// new FilesystemIterator( PATH , OPTIONS ) : array

$array_file_list = new FilesystemIterator( PATH_ROOT . 'folder/', FilesystemIterator::SKIP_DOTS );

?>
up
6
fordiman at gmail dot com
18 years ago
This one's pretty nice. After getting frustrated for hunting down .jpg files in my massive music collection (PHP would run out of memory), I thought there should be a preg_ls function.

function preg_ls ($path=".", $rec=false, $pat="/.*/") {
// it's going to be used repeatedly, ensure we compile it for speed.
$pat=preg_replace("|(/.*/[^S]*)|s", "\\1S", $pat);
//Remove trailing slashes from path
while (substr($path,-1,1)=="/") $path=substr($path,0,-1);
//also, make sure that $path is a directory and repair any screwups
if (!is_dir($path)) $path=dirname($path);
//assert either truth or falsehoold of $rec, allow no scalars to mean truth
if ($rec!==true) $rec=false;
//get a directory handle
$d=dir($path);
//initialise the output array
$ret=Array();
//loop, reading until there's no more to read
while (false!==($e=$d->read())) {
//Ignore parent- and self-links
if (($e==".")||($e=="..")) continue;
//If we're working recursively and it's a directory, grab and merge
if ($rec && is_dir($path."/".$e)) {
$ret=array_merge($ret,preg_ls($path."/".$e,$rec,$pat));
continue;
}
//If it don't match, exclude it
if (!preg_match($pat,$e)) continue;
//In all other cases, add it to the output array
$ret[]=$path."/".$e;
}
//finally, return the array
return $ret;
}

Not bad for a mere 18 lines, don't you think?

Example use:

foreach (preg_ls("/etc/X11", true, "/.*\.conf/i") as $file) echo $file."\n";

Output:

/etc/X11/xkb/README.config
/etc/X11/xorg.conf-vesa
/etc/X11/xorg.conf~
/etc/X11/gui.conf
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
/etc/X11/xorg.conf-fbdev
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4
samuel dot l at mushicrew dot com
18 years ago
Note that the dir object will use the default encoding for non-unicode programs on Windows with PHP 5.x.

So, if you have a file named with characters unsupported by the current default encoding, the dir->read() method will return a wrong entry.

<?php
/*
** This script is on the same directory than a file named with
** unsupported characters for the current default encoding.
*/
$d = dir("./");
while(
false !== ($e = $d->read()))
echo
$e . '<br/>';
?>

This will print a "?" for every unsupported characters, and not the right file name. So take care if you check with is_file/is_dir right after enumerating.
up
3
Anonymous
18 years ago
Regarding samuel's comment about the dir() function not supporting Unicode properly, it's all in the encoding. The function does NOT internally change Unicode characters into question marks (?), as I was first led to believe. If you simply try to output them in UTF-8, they'll show up just right.
up
1
synnus at gmail dot com
2 years ago
<?php

/*
New recursive PHP8
gen array path with FilesystemIterator
*/

$recurcive_path = [];
rdir(path, $recurcive_path);
var_dump($recurcive_path);

function
rdir(string $path, array &$recurcive_path): string
{
if (
$path != '') {
$recurcive_path[] = $path;
$array_list = iterator_to_array(new FilesystemIterator($path, FilesystemIterator::SKIP_DOTS));
foreach (
$array_list as $name) {
$pathname = $name->getpathname();
if(
is_dir($pathname) && $name->getfilename()[0] != '.'){
$path = rdir($pathname,$recurcive_path);
}
}
return
$path;
}
return
'';
}

?>
up
1
GUILLE@GARGANO
13 years ago
to get a dir of http://www.example.com/directory

<?php
function remotedir($dir)
{
$dir = str_replace(" ", "%20", html_entity_decode($dir));
if ((
$rh = fopen($dir, 'rb')) === FALSE) { return false; }
$i = 0;
while (!
feof($rh)) {
$archivos = fgetss($rh);
$directorio[$i++] = trim( substr($archivos,1,strpos($archivos," ",1)) );
}
fclose($rh);
return
$directorio;
}
?>
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