How to delete file in PHP

Question

I want to delete files in a specific directory in PHP. How can I achieve this? I have the following code but it does not delete the files.

$files = array();
$dir = dir('files');
while ($file = $dir->read()) {
    if ($file != '.' && $file != '..') {
        $files[] = $file;
    }
    unlink($file);
}

Possible duplicate of [How to delete a file via PHP?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2371408/how-to-delete-a-file-via-php) — Cosmic Ossifrage, Sep 09 '18 at 11:09

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 09 '18 at 09:34

I think your question isn't specific, this code must clear all files in the directory 'files'.

But there are some errors in that code I think, and here is the right code:

        $files= array();
        $dir = dir('files');
        while (($file = $dir->read()) !== false) { // You must supply a condition to avoid infinite looping
           if ($file != '.' && $file != '..') {
              $files[] = $file; // In this array you push the valid files in the provided directory, which are not (. , ..) 
           }
           unlink('files/'.$file); // This must remove the file in the queue 
        }

And finally make sure that you provided the right path to dir().

user3601546 · Answer 2 · 2019-01-03T11:08:15.157

You can get all directory contents with glob and check if the value is a file with is_file() before unlinking it.

$files = glob('files/*'); // get directory contents
foreach ($files as $file) { // iterate files      
   // Check if file
   if (is_file($file)) {
      unlink($file); // delete file
   }
}

If you want to remove files matching a pattern like .png or .jpg, you have to use

$files = glob('/tmp/*.{png,jpg}', GLOB_BRACE);

See manual for glob.

How to delete file in PHP

2 Answers2