How to delete files from directory based on creation date in php?

Question

I have a cache folder that stores html files. They are overwritten when needed, but a lot of the time, rarely used pages are cached in there also, that just end up using sp

Answer 1

/* Detele Cache Files Here */
$dir = "cache/"; /** define the directory **/

/*** cycle through all files in the directory ***/
foreach (glob($dir."*") as $file) {
//foreach (glob($dir.'*.*') as $file){

/*** if file is 24 hours (86400 seconds) old then delete it ***/
if (filemtime($file) < time() - 3600) { // 1 hour
    unlink($file);
    }
}

I am using this, hope it helps.

Answer 2

It should be

if((time()-$filelastmodified) > 24*3600 && is_file($file))

to avoid errors for the . and .. directories.

Answer 3

$directory = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/pathfromRoot/';

$files = array_slice(scandir($directory), 2);
foreach($files as $file)
{
    // $extension      = substr($file, -3, 3); 
    // if ($extension == 'jpg') // in case you only want specific files deleted
    // {
    $stat = stat($directory.$file);
    $filedate = date_create(date("Y-m-d", $stat['ctime']));
    $today = date_create(date("Y-m-d"));
    $days = date_diff($filedate, $today, true);
    // dd($days);
    if ($days->days > 180) 
    { 
        unlink($directory.$file);
    }
     // } 
}

Answer 4

Try SplIterators

// setup timezone and get timestamp for yesterday
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Berlin'); // change to yours
$yesterday = strtotime('-1 day', time());

// setup path to cache dir and initialize iterator
$path      = realpath('/path/to/files'); // change to yours
$objects   = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
                 new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($path));

// iterate over files in directory and delete them
foreach($objects as $name => $object){
    if ($object->isFile() && ($object->getCTime() < $yesterday)) {
        // unlink($object);
        echo PHP_EOL, 'deleted ' . $object;
    }
}

Creation Time is only available on Windows.

Answer 5

just to note Gordon's time comparison (see above: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2205833/1875965) is the only correct one when comparing to 'days' rather than '24 hours', as not all days have 24 hours (summertime/wintertime etc).

E.g. use

// setup timezone and get timestamp for yesterday
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Berlin'); // change as appropriate
$yesterday = strtotime('-1 day', time());

when comparing the file date.

This may not be a big issue, but can lead to unexpected behaviour when you're working with weeks/months etc. I found it best to stick to using the above method as it'll make any process involving dates/times consistent and avoid confusion.

Also check what the timezone is for the file dates, as sometimes the default for PHP differs from the system timezone.

Kind regards, Sandra.

Answer 6

The below function lists the file based on their creation date:

private function listdir_by_date( $dir ){
  $h = opendir( $dir );
  $_list = array();
  while( $file = readdir( $h ) ){
    if( $file != '.' and $file != '..' ){
      $ctime = filectime( $dir . $file );
      $_list[ $file ] = $ctime;
    }
  }
  closedir( $h );
  krsort( $_list );
  return $_list;
}

Example:

$_list = listdir_by_date($dir);

Now you can loop through the list to see their dates and delete accordingly:

$now = time();
$days = 1;
foreach( $_list as $file => $exp ){
  if( $exp < $now-60*60*24*$days ){
    unlink( $dir . $file );
  }
}