glob

add a note User Contributed Notes

c_windows_temp at hotmail dot com
07-Jun-2006 07:53


Note that this function does not list broken symbolic links.

ny_obaATgmxDOTnet
03-Apr-2006 11:51


Case insensitive version of this function for mswin:



// only supported flags are GLOB_NOSORT | GLOB_ONLYDIR

function iglob($pattern, $flags)

{

  $path = preg_split(

      '#(?<=\A|[\\\\/])((?>[^\\\\/*?]*)[*?](?>[^\\\\/]*))(?=\Z|[\\\\/])#',

      $pattern, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE | PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY

    );



  foreach ($path as &$n)

    if (preg_match('/[*?]/', $n))

    {

      $re = '';

      for ($i = 0, $l = strlen($n); $i < $l; $i++)

        switch($n{$i})

        {

          case '*': $re .= '.*'; break;

          case '?': $re .= '.'; break;

          default: $re .= sprintf('\x%02x', ord($n{$i}));

        }

      $n = array(0, "/^$re$/i");

    }

    else

      $n = array(1, $n);



  $res = array();

  iglob_DFS($path, $flags, '', 0, $res);

  if (!($flags & GLOB_NOSORT))

    sort($res);



  return $res;

}



function iglob_DFS($path, $flags, $parent, $lvl, &$res)

{

  $depth = count($path) - 1;



  if (($lvl < $depth) && $path[$lvl][0])

    $parent .= $path[$lvl++][1];



  $files = array();

  if ($path[$lvl][0])

    $files[] = $path[$lvl][1];

  else

    if ($d = @opendir(($parent == '') ? '.' : $parent))

    {

      while (($n = readdir($d)) !== false)

        if ($n != '.' && $n != '..')

          $files[] = $n;

      closedir($d);

    }



  foreach ($files as $f)

    if ($path[$lvl][0] || preg_match($path[$lvl][1], $f))

    {

      $fullpath = $parent.$f;

      if ($lvl == $depth)

      {

        if (!($flags & GLOB_ONLYDIR) || is_dir($fullpath))

          $res[] = $fullpath;

      }

      else

        iglob_DFS($path, $flags, $fullpath, $lvl + 1, $res);

    }

}

edogs [at] dogsempire.com
04-Mar-2006 09:34


funny enough, but our testing opendir VS glob



show advantage of opendir by speed



0.00115704536438

and

0.0068039894104



or if to pass 200 times

0.210277080536

vs

1.2976038456

info at urbits dot com
06-Jan-2006 08:26


I have been working towards a CMS-type design that is both modular and quite flat. For example, included files are all one level below the installation folder.



glob() just help me get rid of a lot of opendir() hassle. I wasn't sure if the double asterix would work - but it's fine:



foreach (glob(SERVER_PATH."/*/includes/*.php") as $inc) {

   require($inc);

}

admiral [at] nuclearpixel [dot] com
24-Nov-2005 12:38


I've written a function that I've been using quite a lot over the past year or so. I've built whole websites and their file based CMSs based on this one function, mostly because (I think) databases are not as portable as groups of files and folders. In previous versions, I used opendir and readdir to get contents, but now I can do in one line what used to take several. How? Most of the work in the whole script is done by calling



glob("$dir/*")



Giving me an array containing the names of the items in the folder, minus the ones beginning with '.', as well as the ones I specify.



<?php



/* alpharead version 3: This function returns an array containing the names of the files inside any given folder, excluding files that start with a '.', as well as the filenames listed in the '$killit' array. This array is sorted using the 'natural alphabetical' sorting manner. If no input is given to the function, it lists items in the script's interpreted folder. Version 3 fixes a MAJOR bug in version 2 which corrupted certain arrays with greater than 5 keys and one of the supposedly removed filenames.

written by Admiral at NuclearPixel.com */



function alpharead3($dir){

if(!$dir){$dir = '.';}

foreach(glob("$dir/*") as $item){$sort[]= end(explode('/',$item));}



$killit = array('index.html', 'index.php', 'thumbs.db', 'styles.css');

$killcounter = 0;

foreach($sort as $sorteditem){

foreach($killit as $killcheck){

if(strtolower($sorteditem) == strtolower($killcheck))

{unset($sort[$killcounter]);}

}$killcounter++;}

if($sort){natsort($sort);}

foreach($sort as $item){$return[]= $item;}



if(!$return){return array();}

return $return;

}



//some basic usage



$folder = 'images';

foreach(alpharead3($folder) as $item)

{

echo '<img src="'.$folder.'/'.$item.'"><br>'.$item."\n";

}



?>



Commens on this function are welcome!

27-Oct-2005 03:27


in the example below, i found i got an error if the directory was empty or the directory do not exists.



<?php

foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {

   echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";

}

?>



My solution has:

$arrayFiles=glob('c:\text\*.*');

if($arrayFiles){

  foreach ($arrayFiles as $filename) {

    echo "$filename size <br>";

  }

}

else

  echo"File not found."

Jacob Eisenberg
06-Oct-2005 01:55


Note that on Windows, glob distinguishes between uppercase and lowercase extensions, so if the directory contains a file "test.txt" and you glob for "*.TXT" then the file will not be found!

That bug only happens when you use patterns containing "*", like the example above. If you for example search for the full filename "test.TXT" then everything works correctly.

DMan
28-Aug-2005 03:59


Whilst on Windows, a path starting with a slash resolves OK for most file functions - but NOT glob. 

If the server is LAUNCHED (or chdir()ed) to W:, then 

file_exists("/temp/test.txt")

returns true for the file "W:/temp/test.txt".

But glob("/temp/*.txt") FAILS to find it!



A solution (if you want to avoid getting drive letters into your code) is to chdir() first, then just look for the file.

<?php

$glob="/temp/*.txt";

chdir(dirname($glob));

// getcwd() is now actually "W:\temp" or whatever



foreach (glob(basename($glob)) as $filename) {

   $filepath = dirname($glob)."/".$filename; // must re-attach full path

   echo "$filepath size " . filesize($filepath) . "\n";

}

?>



Note also, glob() IS case sensitive although most other file funcs on Windows are not.

x_terminat_or_3 at yahoo dot country:fr
07-Jul-2005 06:36


This is a replacement for glob on servers that are running a php version < 4.3



It supports * and ? jokers, and stacking of parameters with ;  



So you can do 



<? $results=glob('/home/user/*.txt;*.doc') ?>



And it will return an array of matched files.  



As is the behaviour of the built-in glob function, this one will also return boolean false if no matches are found, and will use the current working directory if none is specified.



<?php

if(!(function_exists('glob')))

{function glob($pattern)

 {#get pathname (everything up until the last / or \)

  $path=$output=null;

  if(PHP_OS=='WIN32')

   $slash='\\';

  else

   $slash='/';

  $lastpos=strrpos($pattern,$slash);

  if(!($lastpos===false))

  {$path=substr($pattern,0,-$lastpos-1); #negative length means take from the right

   $pattern=substr($pattern,$lastpos);

  }

  else

  {#no dir info, use current dir

   $path=getcwd();

  }

  $handle=@ opendir($path);

  if($handle===false)

   return false;

  while($dir=readdir($handle))

  {if(pattern_match($pattern,$dir))

    $output[]=$dir;

  }

  closedir($handle);

  if(is_array($output))

   return $output;

  return false;

 }



 function pattern_match($pattern,$string)

 {#basically prepare a regular expression

  $out=null;

  $chunks=explode(';',$pattern);

  foreach($chunks as $pattern)

  {$escape=array('$','^','.','{','}',

                 '(',')','[',']','|');

   while(strpos($pattern,'**')!==false)

    $pattern=str_replace('**','*',$pattern);

   foreach($escape as $probe)

    $pattern=str_replace($probe,"\\$probe",$pattern);

   $pattern=str_replace('?*','*',

             str_replace('*?','*',

              str_replace('*',".*",

               str_replace('?','.{1,1}',$pattern))));

   $out[]=$pattern;

  }

  if(count($out)==1)

   return(eregi("^$out[0]$",$string));

  else

   foreach($out as $tester)

    if(eregi("^$tester$",$string))

     return true;

   return false;

 }

}

?>



This function is case insensitive, but if needed, you can do this to make it behave depending on os:



* replace eregi in the example with my_regexp



add this function

<?php

function my_regexp($pattern,$probe)

{$sensitive=(PHP_OS!='WIN32');

  $sensitive=false;

 return ($sensitive?

     ereg($pattern,$probe):

     eregi($pattern,$probe));

}

?>

mjs15451 at hotmail dot com
18-Jun-2005 06:03


In regards to the comments made by: NOSPAM sketch at infinite dot net dot au, he is wrong about Unix/Linux (I can't speak for Windows).  I am running PHP 5.0.4 and I ran a bunch of different tests on relative and absolute paths using the glob function and they all work on Unix/Linux.  I also tested glob on empty directories and patterns which don't match any files (even directories or files which don't exist) and it __always__ returns an empty array.  I couldn't get the glob function to return false so it looks like it always returns an array.

Michael T. McGrew
17-May-2005 10:12


Take all file names in the directory and put them in a link.

<?php

foreach (glob("*.*") as $filename) 

{

   echo "<a href=\"".$filename."\">".$filename."</a><br/>";

}

?>

cgamedude at yahoo dot com
05-May-2005 06:38


Here is the *correct* way to do a reverse-alphabetical search:

<?

$Results = glob( 'blah.*' );

rsort( $Results );

?>

There now, wasn't that easy? :)

Deviant
05-Apr-2005 07:53


A slight edit on the globr() function stated by sthomas. This does exactly the same just works on windows systems for < PHP 4.3.3. :



<?php



function globr($sDir, $sPattern, $nFlags = NULL) {

    $aFiles = glob("$sDir/$sPattern", $nFlags); 

    $files = getDir($sDir);

    if (is_array($files)) {

        foreach( $files as $file ) {

            $aSubFiles = globr($file, $sPattern, $nFlags);

            $aFiles = array_merge($aFiles,$aSubFiles);

        }

    }

    return $aFiles;

}



function getDir($sDir) {

    $i=0;

    if(is_dir($sDir)) {

        if($rContents = opendir($sDir)) {

            while($sNode = readdir($rContents)) {

                if(is_dir($sDir.'/'.$sNode )) {

                    if($sNode !="." && $sNode !="..") {

                        $aDirs[$i] = $sDir.'/'.$sNode ;

                        $i++;

                    }

                }

            }

        }

    }

    return $aDirs;

}



?>

cjcommunications at gmail dot com
01-Apr-2005 09:02


Here is a way I used glob() to browse a directory, pull the file name out, resort according to the most recent date and format it using date(). I called the function inside a <select> and had it go directly to the PDF file:



function browsepdf(){

    $pdffile=glob("printable/*.pdf");

    rsort($pdffile);

    foreach($pdffile as $filename){

        $filename=ltrim($filename, "printable/");

        $filename=rtrim($filename, ".pdf");

        $file=$filename;

        $datetime=strtotime($filename);

        $newdate=strtotime("+3 days",$datetime);

        $filenamedate=date("F d", $datetime);

        $filenamedate.=" - ".date("F d, Y", $newdate);

        echo "<option value='$file'>$filenamedate</option>";

    }

}

fraggy(AT)chello.nl
24-Mar-2005 07:23


glob caused me some real pain in the buttom on windows, because of the DOS thing with paths (backslashes instead of slashes)...



This was my own fault because I "forgot" that the backslash, when used in strings, needs to be escaped, but well, it can cause a lot of confusion, even for people who are not exactly newbies anymore...



For some reason, I didn't have this problem with other file operations (chdir, opendir, etc...), which was the most confusing of all...



So, for people running scripts on Windows machines (Dos95, 98 or WinNT or DosXP), just remember this:



glob('c:\temp\*.*'); // works correctly, returns an array with files.

glob("c:\temp\*.*"); // does NOT work... the backslashes need to be escaped...

glob("c:\\temp\\*.*"); // that works again...



This is especially confusing when temporary writable directories are returned as an unescaped string.



$tempdir = getenv('TEMP');

// this returns "C:\DOCUME~1\user\LOCALS~1\Temp"

so in order to scan that directoy I need to do:



glob($tempdir . "\\*.*");



Or perhaps it's easier to replace all backslashes with slashes in order to avoid these kinds of confusions...



glob("c:/temp/*.*"); // works fine too...



I know I'm not contributing anything new here, but I just hope this post may avoid some unnecessary headaches...

NOSPAM sketch at infinite dot net dot au
15-Mar-2005 09:05


in the example below, i found i got an error if the directory was empty.



<?php

foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {

   echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";

}

?>



I think its because glob()'ing an empty directory returns false, and so calling foreach (false as $value) will obviously break.



to fix this, i did the following:

<?php

$files = glob("*.txt) or array(); // give it an empty array if the directory is empty or glob fails otherwise

   echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "n";

}

?>



Hope this helps someone

30-Jan-2005 06:09


Be aware...



On Windows you need to add "/" mark:

<?php

$files = glob("/dir/*.txt"); // Works properly.

$files = glob("dir/*.txt"); // Failure!, first letter is missing on every filename!

?>



On Unix you cant add the "/" mark:

<?php

$files = glob("dir/*.txt"); // Works properly.

$files = glob("/dir/*.txt"); // No files found!

?>



Hope this will save your time :)

24-Jan-2005 05:54


The example on this page will generate a warning if the glob function does not find any filenames that match the pattern.



The glob function result will only be an array if it finds some files and the foreach statement requires its argument to be an array.



By checking for the possibility that the result of the glob function may not be an array you can eliminate the warning.



Here's a better example:



<?php

$matches = glob("*.txt");

if ( is_array ( $matches ) ) {

   foreach ( $matches as $filename) {

    echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";

   }

}

?>

Paul Gregg / Qube #efnet
31-Mar-2004 09:52


Just threw this together in response to a common question in irc:



Available at: http://www.pgregg.com/projects/

http://www.pgregg.com/projects/php/code/preg_find.phps



preg_find() - A function to search in a directory for files or directories matching a preg_ pattern.  Tell it the pattern, the start directory and some optional flags and it will return an array of files and their associated stat() details.  If you just want the filenames, just do an array_keys() on the result.



e.g. $files = preg_find("/\.php$/", '.', PREG_FIND_RECURSIVE);

will find all files ending in .php in the current directory and below.



Options are:

// PREG_FIND_RECURSIVE  - go into subdirectorys looking for more files

// PREG_FIND_DIRMATCH   - return directorys that match the pattern also

// PREG_FIND_FULLPATH   - search for the pattern in the full path (dir+file)

// PREG_FIND_NEGATE     - return files that don't match the pattern

// to use more than one simple seperate them with a | character



Hope you find it useful.



Paul.

Per Lundberg
25-Nov-2003 11:57


Be aware that on UNIX, * as the pattern will *not* match dot-files and dot-directories.  Knowing this will save you some headache.  :-)  May He bless you.

MichaelSoft
06-Nov-2003 07:28


Note that, in some configurations, the search is case-sensitive! You'll need to have something like:



<?php

$images = glob("/path/to/images/{*.jpg,*.JPG}", GLOB_BRACE);

?>



Also on some servers, I have seen such scripts 'crash' with an CGI Error ("...not returning a complete set of HTTP headers...") when glob could not find any match!

ryan at wonko dot com
30-Oct-2003 03:03


Here's an example of how to use the GLOB_BRACE flag:



<?php

$images = glob("/path/to/images/{*.gif,*.jpg,*.png}", GLOB_BRACE);

?>



It's also worth noting that when using the GLOB_BRACE flag in any version of PHP prior to 4.3.4, PHP will crash if no matches are found.

sthomas at townnews dot com
12-Mar-2003 07:41


<?php


/**


 * Recursive version of glob


 *


 * @return array containing all pattern-matched files.


 *


 * @param string $sDir      Directory to start with.


 * @param string $sPattern  Pattern to glob for.


 * @param int $nFlags       Flags sent to glob.


 */


function globr($sDir, $sPattern, $nFlags = NULL)


{


  $sDir = escapeshellcmd($sDir);





  // Get the list of all matching files currently in the


  // directory.





  $aFiles = glob("$sDir/$sPattern", $nFlags);





  // Then get a list of all directories in this directory, and


  // run ourselves on the resulting array.  This is the


  // recursion step, which will not execute if there are no


  // directories.





  foreach (glob("$sDir/*", GLOB_ONLYDIR) as $sSubDir)


  {


    $aSubFiles = rglob($sSubDir, $sPattern, $nFlags);


   $aFiles = array_merge($aFiles, $aSubFiles);


  }





  // The array we return contains the files we found, and the


  // files all of our children found.





  return $aFiles;


}





?>

martin dot rode at zeroscale dot com
20-Feb-2003 03:37


If you don't have PHP >= 4.3 available and don't want to hassle with PHP (:-) do something like this on GNU/Linux: 





<?php


foreach (explode("\n",`find -type d -maxdepth 1 ! -name ".*" -printf "%f\n" `) as $dirname) {


    print $dirname;


}


?>





With the "find" you can "glob" whatever you like.

tmm at aon dot at
22-Dec-2002 08:50


I have written my own function for searching files, but it only supports ? and *


However it should be easily expandable.





<?php


// e.g. $matches=GetMachingFiles(GetContents("."),"*.txt");


function GetMatchingFiles($files, $search) {





    // Split to name and filetype


    if(strpos($search,".")) {


      $baseexp=substr($search,0,strpos($search,"."));


      $typeexp=substr($search,strpos($search,".")+1,strlen($search));


    } else { 


      $baseexp=$search;


      $typeexp="";


    } 


     


    // Escape all regexp Characters 


    $baseexp=preg_quote($baseexp); 


    $typeexp=preg_quote($typeexp); 


     


    // Allow ? and *


    $baseexp=str_replace(array("\*","\?"), array(".*","."), $baseexp);


    $typeexp=str_replace(array("\*","\?"), array(".*","."), $typeexp);


        


    // Search for Matches


    $i=0;


    foreach($files as $file) {


      $filename=basename($file);


        


      if(strpos($filename,".")) {


        $base=substr($filename,0,strpos($filename,"."));


        $type=substr($filename,strpos($filename,".")+1,strlen($filename));


      } else { 


        $base=$filename;


        $type="";


      }





      if(preg_match("/^".$baseexp."$/i",$base) && preg_match("/^".$typeexp."$/i",$type))  {


        $matches[$i]=$file;


        $i++;


      }


    }


    return $matches;


}





And if someone's searching for a function which gets all files from a directory including the subdirectories:





// Returns all Files contained in given dir, including subdirs


function GetContents($dir,$files=array()) {


  if(!($res=opendir($dir))) exit("$dir doesn't exist!");


  while(($file=readdir($res))==TRUE) 


    if($file!="." && $file!="..")


      if(is_dir("$dir/$file")) $files=GetContents("$dir/$file",$files);


        else array_push($files,"$dir/$file");


      


  closedir($res);


  return $files;


}





?>

leon at leonatkinson dot com
18-Oct-2002 09:03


Since this function is a wrapper for the OS function of the same name, you may find it helpful to look at the man page while the exact PHP implementation is sorted out.



You might have some luck passing in the literal values of the constants defined in /usr/include/glob.h.  For example, GLOB_NOSORT is defined as (1 << 2), which is 4.  In PHP, glob('*.php', 4) will returns an unsorted list for me in RH 7.x.  YMMV.

opessin at ifrance dot com
07-Jul-2002 06:48


If this function is not available in your version of PHP, think looking at the 'Directory Functions' which can be used instead.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.dir.php

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