Include JUST files in scandir array?

Question

I have an array I'm getting back from scandir, but it contains "." and ".." and I don't want it to.

My code:

$indir = scandir('../pages');
$fileextensions = array(".", "php", "html", "htm", "shtml");
$replaceextensions = str_replace($fileextensions, "", $indir);

I am doing a string replace on the file extensions, thus causing [0] and [1] to appear empty, but they are "." and ".."

array(4) {
[0]=>
string(0) ""
[1]=>
string(0) ""
[2]=>
string(4) "test"
[3]=>
string(4) "home"
}

How would I remove the "." and ".." from the array?

Related, and perhaps what you're really looking for: [Exclude hidden files from scandir](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8532569/exclude-hidden-files-from-scandir) — Mark Amery, Jun 09 '15 at 11:09

score 44 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 04 '13 at 04:00

44

You can use array_filter.

$indir = array_filter(scandir('../pages'), function($item) {
    return !is_dir('../pages/' . $item);
});

Note this filters out all directories and leaves only files and symlinks. If you really want to only exclude only files (and directories) starting with ., then you could do something like:

$indir = array_filter(scandir('../pages'), function($item) {
    return $item[0] !== '.';
});

answered Feb 04 '13 at 04:00

leftclickben

4,434
21
24

2

Awesome. Perfect explanation. Thanks so much. – Rbn Feb 04 '13 at 04:05
Don't use array_filter with a callback for this, just use `array_diff`. – Arnold Daniels Feb 04 '13 at 04:08
@ArnoldDaniels That would only work to remove exactly `.` and `..`, my solutions are more generalised and neither can be done with `array_diff()` – leftclickben Feb 04 '13 at 04:11
@leftclickben Removing `.` and `..` is exactly his question. – Arnold Daniels Feb 04 '13 at 04:14
1

Just because a junior programmer thinks they are only looking for `.` and `..`, in my experience that is rarely the case. The question states that he is putting names of files into a database. Therefore my first answer was to filter out the directories, which includes `.` and `..`. – leftclickben Feb 04 '13 at 04:23
Also, why do you say "don't use array_filter.. for this"? What is your reason for telling me not to using it? – leftclickben Feb 04 '13 at 04:23

mintedsky · Answer 2 · 2018-10-04T21:27:39.863

28

Fastest way to remove dots as files in scandir

$files = array_slice(scandir('/path/to/directory/'), 2);

From the PHP Manual

edited Oct 04 '18 at 21:27

answered Feb 28 '15 at 14:21

mintedsky

1,033
13
18

3

This is just what I was looking for. Easy straight forward. This should be considered as best answer – Rusty Jun 20 '16 at 18:20
yeah seems like the best approach, seems like there should be an included filter for scan_dir built in. Seems like a no-brainer. I could be wrong. – vikingben Dec 07 '18 at 20:13
1

Taken from a [comment](https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.scandir.php#122438) on the PHP site itself: Someone wrote that array_slice could be used to quickly remove directory entries "." and "..". However, "-" is a valid entry that would come before those, so array_slice would remove the wrong entries. – Max Oct 21 '19 at 09:15
2

Never ever saw a "-" in my directory. I think in most cases this will work fine. – mintedsky Oct 22 '19 at 15:09
This solution does not work if you have a prefix '#' or '-' in your entries, because they go before the dot entries. – Zelkovar Feb 02 '22 at 07:36

Jonathan Wren · Answer 3 · 2013-02-04T04:07:26.600

9

array_diff will do what you're looking for:

$indir = scandir('../pages');
$fileextensions = array(".", "php", "html", "htm", "shtml");
$indir = array_diff($indir, array('.', '..'));
$replaceextensions = str_replace($fileextensions, "", $indir);

http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-diff.php

edited Feb 04 '13 at 04:07

answered Feb 04 '13 at 04:00

Jonathan Wren

3,602
22
28

FluorescentGreen5 · Answer 4 · 2017-04-06T02:50:09.250

3

I am aware erknrio provided an answer for this, but here is a cleaner way of getting an array of files without directories (modified to be more efficient):

$dirPath = 'dashboard';

$dir = scandir($dirPath);

foreach($dir as $index => &$item)
{
    if(is_dir($dirPath. '/' . $item))
    {
        unset($dir[$index]);
    }
}

$dir = array_values($dir);

edited Apr 06 '17 at 02:50

answered Mar 10 '17 at 15:03

FluorescentGreen5

829
11
23

`&$item` should be `$item`. – Dan Bray May 28 '18 at 17:20
@DanBray Why's that? – FluorescentGreen5 Jun 22 '18 at 10:54
you never modify `$item` so there is no point in having a reference to it, unless you changed `unset($dir[$index])` to `unset($item])`. – Dan Bray Jun 22 '18 at 13:18
@DanBray It was a micro-optimization. – FluorescentGreen5 Jun 26 '18 at 11:21

mrroot5 · Answer 5 · 2016-11-09T13:48:30.110

0

You can use this snippet. It returns just files in directory:

function only_files($dir_element) {
    if (!is_dir($dir_element)) {
        return $dir_element;
    }
}

function givemefiles($dir) {
    $scanned_dir = scandir($dir);
    return array_filter($scanned_dir, "only_files");
}

$dir_path = '../pages';

givemefiles($dir_path);
echo "<pre>";
var_dump($scanned_dir);
echo "</pre>";

edited Nov 09 '16 at 13:48

answered Nov 09 '16 at 13:14

mrroot5

1,581
3
24
30

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 22 '17 at 06:01

0

simply use preg_replace to remove all kind of hidden's file from directory

$files = array(".", "..", "html", ".~html", "shtml");    
$newfiles = preg_grep('/^([^.])/', scandir($files));

answered Sep 22 '17 at 06:01

Devdutt Sharma

381
1
2
10

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 14 '21 at 10:27

If you need a clean function;

function getFiles($dir){
    return array_values(array_filter(scandir($dir), function($file){
        global $dir;
        return !is_dir("{$dir}/{$file}");
    }));
}

I think this function is both neat and will work well. Also, the keys of the returned array in this function are sorted correctly.

Include JUST files in scandir array?

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