PHP: Directory Listing
A common request is to be able to produce a list of some or all of the files in a directory - similar to the default index page provided by most web servers, but with more control over the content and formatting.
Another goal might be to take some action on the files using PHP. In either case the first step is to query the file system to return a list of directories and files.
The functions presented below provide the means to extract the file names and other properties from a single directory, or to explore subdirectories recursively.
PHP 5 introduces the scandir function which will "List files and directories inside the specified path" but won't recurse or provide additional information about the listed files.
If you are using PHP 5 or higher check out our new article on Directory Listing using SPL classes for a much neater approach, and our new FileList PHP class.
Single Directory Listing
To get started, here is a simple function that returns a list of files, directories and their properties from a single directory (more advanced versions of this function can be found further down the page):
<?PHP
function getFileList($dir)
{
// array to hold return value
$retval = [];
// add trailing slash if missing
if(substr($dir, -1) != "/") {
$dir .= "/";
}
// open pointer to directory and read list of files
$d = @dir($dir) or die("getFileList: Failed opening directory {$dir} for reading");
while(FALSE !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
// skip hidden files
if($entry{0} == ".") {
continue;
}
if(is_dir("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}/",
'type' => filetype("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => 0,
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
} elseif(is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}",
'type' => mime_content_type("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => filesize("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
}
} // for each file
$d->close();
return $retval;
}
?>
You can use this function as follows:
<?PHP
// list files in the current directory
$dirlist = getFileList(".");
$dirlist = getFileList("./");
// a subdirectory of the current directory called images
$dirlist = getFileList("images");
$dirlist = getFileList("images/");
$dirlist = getFileList("./images");
$dirlist = getFileList("./images/");
// using an absolute path
$dirlist = getFileList("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/images");
$dirlist = getFileList("{$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']}/images/");
?>
The variable $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] should resolve to the root directory of your website. e.g. /var/www/public_html
The return value is an associative array of files including the filepath, type, size and last modified date, except when a file is actually a directory, in that case the string "(dir)" appears instead of the filesize. The filenames take the same stem as the function call:
Example 1:
<?PHP
$dirlist = getFileList("images");
echo "<pre>",print_r($dirlist),"</pre>";
/* sample output
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => images/background0.jpg
[type] => image/jpeg
[size] => 86920
[lastmod] => 1077461701
)
[1] => ...
)
*/
?>
Example 2:
<?PHP
$dirlist = getFileList("./images");
echo "<pre>",print_r($dirlist),"</pre>";
/* sample output
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => ./images/background0.jpg
[type] => image/jpeg
[size] => 86920
[lastmod] => 1077461701
)
[1] => ...
)
*/
?>
If you want the output sorted by one or more fields, you should read the article on Sorting Arrays of Arrays or try out one of our DHTML Sorting Algorithms using JavaScript.
We also have an article on Directory Listing using SPL classes (DirectoryIterator and SplFileInfo) which introduces many new options for filtering and sorting the output.
Displaying File List in HTML
To output the results to an HTML page we just loop through the returned array:
<?PHP
// output file list in HTML TABLE format
echo "<table border=\"1\">\n";
echo "<thead>\n";
echo "<tr><th>Name</th><th>Type</th><th>Size</th><th>Last Modified</th></tr>\n";
echo "</thead>\n";
echo "<tbody>\n";
foreach($dirlist as $file) {
echo "<tr>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['name']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['type']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['size']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>",date('r', $file['lastmod']),"</td>\n";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
echo "</tbody>\n";
echo "</table>\n\n";
?>
This code can be easily modified to: make the output a list instead of a table; make the file names actual links; replace the names with icons based on file type or extension; etc.
Display PNG images in a TABLE:
For example, to display only PNG files, just add a condition to the output loop:
<?PHP
// output file list as HTML table
echo "<table border=\"1\">\n";
echo "<thead>\n";
echo "<tr><th></th><th>Name</th><th>Type</th><th>Size</th><th>Last Modified</th></tr>\n";
echo "</thead>\n";
echo "<tbody>\n";
foreach($dirlist as $file) {
if(!preg_match("/\.png$/", $file['name'])) {
continue;
}
echo "<tr>\n";
echo "<td><img src=\"{$file['name']}\" width=\"64\" alt=\"\"></td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['name']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['type']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['size']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>",date('r', $file['lastmod']),"</td>\n";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
echo "</tbody>\n";
echo "</table>\n\n";
?>
Here you can view the complete source code for this example.
This will have the effect of skipping all files whose name does not end with .png. You could also apply conditions based on the file type, size, or last modified timestamp.
List PDF files with links:
One last example, listing only PDF files and having the file name link to the file:
<table border="1">
<thead>
<tr><th>Name</th><th>Type</th><th>Size</th><th>Last Modified</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<?PHP
// output file list as table rows
foreach($dirlist as $file) {
if($file['type'] != 'application/pdf') {
continue;
}
echo "<tr>\n";
echo "<td><a href=\"{$file['name']}\">",basename($file['name']),"</a></td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['type']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>{$file['size']}</td>\n";
echo "<td>",date('r', $file['lastmod']),"</td>\n";
echo "</tr>\n";
}
?>
</tbody>
</table>
Here you can view the complete source code for this example.
If you want to display, for example, a thumbnail as a link to a larger image, or even a video, just give the two files the same name and in the script above use str_replace or similar function to modify either the link href or the link contents. See our article on listing images for examples.
Using the SPL DirectoryIterator and FilterIterator classes we can now specify a pattern to match when accessing the file list so only matching files are returned. More on that here.
Recursive Directory Listing
Now that we've got this far, it's only a minor change to extend the function in order to recursively list subdirectories. By adding a second parameter to the function we also retain the previous functionality of listing a single directory.
<?PHP
// Original PHP code by Chirp Internet: www.chirpinternet.eu
// Please acknowledge use of this code by including this header.
function getFileList($dir, $recurse = FALSE)
{
$retval = [];
// add trailing slash if missing
if(substr($dir, -1) != "/") {
$dir .= "/";
}
// open pointer to directory and read list of files
$d = @dir($dir) or die("getFileList: Failed opening directory {$dir} for reading");
while(FALSE !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
// skip hidden files
if($entry{0} == ".") {
continue;
}
if(is_dir("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}/",
'type' => filetype("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => 0,
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
if($recurse && is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}/")) {
$retval = array_merge($retval, getFileList("{$dir}{$entry}/", $recurse));
}
} elseif(is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}",
'type' => mime_content_type("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => filesize("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
}
} // for each file
$d->close();
return $retval;
}
?>
To make use of the new functionality, you need to pass a value of TRUE (or 1) as the second parameter.
<?PHP
// single directory
$dirlist = getFileList("./");
// include subdirectories
$dirlist = getFileList("./", TRUE);
?>
Before recursing the script first checks whether sub-directories are readable, and otherwise moves on to the next item so as to avoid permission errors.
As before, the return value is an array of associative arrays. In fact the only change is that you have the additional option of a recursive listing.
Limited Depth Recursion
This final example adds another feature - the ability to specify how deep you want the recursion to go. The previous code would continue to explore directories until it ran out of places to go. With this script you can tell it to not go deeper than a fixed number of levels in the file system.
<?PHP
// Original PHP code by Chirp Internet: www.chirpinternet.eu
// Please acknowledge use of this code by including this header.
function getFileList($dir, $recurse = FALSE, $depth = FALSE)
{
$retval = [];
// add trailing slash if missing
if(substr($dir, -1) != "/") {
$dir .= "/";
}
// open pointer to directory and read list of files
$d = @dir($dir) or die("getFileList: Failed opening directory {$dir} for reading");
while(FALSE !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
// skip hidden files
if($entry{0} == ".") {
continue;
}
if(is_dir("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}/",
'type' => filetype("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => 0,
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
if($recurse && is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}/")) {
if($depth === FALSE) {
$retval = array_merge($retval, getFileList("{$dir}{$entry}/", $recurse));
} elseif($depth > 0) {
$retval = array_merge($retval, getFileList("{$dir}{$entry}/", $recurse, --$depth));
}
}
} elseif(is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}",
'type' => mime_content_type("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => filesize("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
}
} // for each file
$d->close();
return $retval;
}
?>
As before we've added a single new parameter and a few lines of code. The default value of the depth parameter, if not defined in the function call, is set to FALSE. This ensures that all previous features remain and that any legacy code won't break when the function is changed.
In other words, we can now call the getFileList function with one, two or three parameters:
<?PHP
// single directory
$dirlist = getFileList("./");
// include all subdirectories recursively
$dirlist = getFileList("./", TRUE);
// include just one or two levels of subdirectories
$dirlist = getFileList("./", TRUE, 1);
$dirlist = getFileList("./", TRUE, 2);
?>
This is a good example of how a function can evolve over time without becoming unmanageable. Too often you see functions that were once useful become unusable because of parameter bloat.
Fileinfo replaces mime_content_type
The mime_content_type function has been deprecated in recent
version of PHP and replaced with the PECL Fileinfo extension was never actually
deprecated, despite announcements to the contrary.
If you are seeing errors in your program due to this, the following patch should work:
<?PHP
function getFileList($dir)
{
if(function_exists('mime_content_type'))
$finfo = FALSE;
} else {
$finfo = finfo_open(FILEINFO_MIME_TYPE);
}
// array to hold return value
$retval = [];
// add trailing slash if missing
if(substr($dir, -1) != "/") {
$dir .= "/";
}
// open pointer to directory and read list of files
$d = @dir($dir) or die("getFileList: Failed opening directory {$dir} for reading");
while(FALSE !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
// skip hidden files
if($entry{0} == ".") {
continue;
}
if(is_dir("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}/",
'type' => filetype("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => 0,
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
} elseif(is_readable("{$dir}{$entry}")) {
$retval[] = [
'name' => "{$dir}{$entry}",
'type' => ($finfo) ? finfo_file($finfo, "{$dir}{$entry}") : mime_content_type("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'size' => filesize("{$dir}{$entry}"),
'lastmod' => filemtime("{$dir}{$entry}")
];
}
} // for each file
$d->close();
return $retval;
}
?>
This is the same function as seen at the top of the page, just with a check for the mime_content_type function inserted at the top to determine which method we use to get the file type.
If you are scanning a complex directory system you probably want to declare $finfo as a global variable to avoid having to re-instantiate it when the function recurses.
References
- PHP.net: Directory Functions
- PHP.net: Array Functions
Related Articles - Directory Listing
- PHP Directory Listing: Images
- PHP Directory Listing using SPL
- PHP File Listing Class
- PHP Directory Listing
Alex 30 May, 2021
I like this work you are sharing, but with whatever I tried - I get server error 500.
I really want to use it, but?
Loly Brandes 31 July, 2020
Can you post the completed code for the Recursive Directory Listing,just like you have for the pdf files listing. I'm trying to re-produce the code and I can't get it to work. I got it working for just the pdf but it won't work for the recursive!! Thanks
The code for looping through and selecting which files to display should be identical in both cases. Only the getFileList() call changes.
roopesh 10 April, 2018
Hi, can you tell how to display only the date modified i.e only the month and the date