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readdir

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)

readdir -- Read entry from directory handle

Description

string readdir ( resource dir_handle )

Returns the filename of the next file from the directory. The filenames are returned in the order in which they are stored by the filesystem.

Parameters

dir_handle

The directory handle resource previously opened with opendir().

Return Values

Returns the filename on success, or FALSE on failure.

Warning

This function may return Boolean FALSE, but may also return a non-Boolean value which evaluates to FALSE, such as 0 or "". Please read the section on Booleans for more information. Use the === operator for testing the return value of this function.

Examples

Example 1. List all files in a directory

Please note the fashion in which readdir()'s return value is checked in the examples 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 (e.g. a directory named "0").

<?php
// Note that !== did not exist until 4.0.0-RC2

if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/files')) {
    echo "Directory handle: $handle\n";
    echo "Files:\n";

    /* This is the correct way to loop over the directory. */
    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
        echo "$file\n";
    }

    /* This is the WRONG way to loop over the directory. */
    while ($file = readdir($handle)) {
        echo "$file\n";
    }

    closedir($handle);
}
?>

Example 2. List all files in the current directory and strip out . and ..

<?php
if ($handle = opendir('.')) {
    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
        if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
            echo "$file\n";
        }
    }
    closedir($handle);
}
?>

See Also

is_dir()
glob()

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