rename folder into sub-folder with PHP

Question

I\'m trying to move a folder by renaming it. Both the test1 and test2 folders already exist.

rename(
 \"test1\",
 \"test2/xxx1/xxx2\"
);

The e

Answer 1

I think test2/xxx1 would need to exist, so you'd need to use mkdir before you move it.

Answer 2

Why not make sure all parent directories exist first, by making them? mkdir - use the recursive parameter.

Answer 3

Your assumption was correct, this is because "xxx1" in your example does not exist.

So, before rename("oldname", "/some/long/nested/path/test2/xxx1/newname") you have to create directory tree structure: /some/long/nested/path/test2/xxx1/ but newname file (or directory) must not exist at the moment of rename function call.

To generalize the solution look at the following naive function:

function renameWithNestedMkdir($oldname , $newname)
{
     $targetDir = dirname($newname); // Returns a parent directory's path (operates naively on the input string, and is not aware of the actual filesystem)

    // here $targetDir is "/some/long/nested/path/test2/xxx1"
    if (!file_exists($targetDir)) {
        mkdir($targetDir, 0777, true); // third parameter "true" allows the creation of nested directories
    }

    return rename($oldname , $newname);
}

// example call
renameWithNestedMkdir("oldname", "/some/long/nested/path/test2/xxx1/newname");

// another example call
renameWithNestedMkdir("test1", "test2/xxx1/xxx2");

I named this implementation "naive" because in real production you should also think about handling some edge cases: what if $newname already exists? What if /some/long/nested/path/test2/xxx1 already exists but it's a file (not a directory)? Why I put 0777 access rights while mkdir? What if mkdir failed?

Answer 4

You might need to create the directory it is going into, e.g.

$toName = "test2/xxx1/xxx2";

if (!is_dir(dirname($toName))) {
    mkdir(dirname($toName), 0777, true);
}

rename("test1", $toName);

The third parameter to mkdir() is 'recursive', which means you can create nested directories with one call.