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

By changing @pawel's solution I created function below. At first i forgot to add "path" to file name, which take my half hour to find out.

public function deleteOldFiles ($hours=24) {
    $path='cache'.DS;
    if ( $handle = opendir( $path ) ) {
        while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
            $filelastmodified = filemtime($path.$file);
            if((time()-$filelastmodified) > 24*3600 && is_file($path.$file))
            {
                unlink($path.$file);
            }
        }
        closedir($handle);
    }
}

Answer 2

I think you could go about this by looping through the directory with readdir and delete based on the timestamp:

<?php
$path = '/path/to/files/';
if ($handle = opendir($path)) {

    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) { 
        $filelastmodified = filemtime($path . $file);
        //24 hours in a day * 3600 seconds per hour
        if((time() - $filelastmodified) > 24*3600)
        {
           unlink($path . $file);
        }

    }

    closedir($handle); 
}
?>

The if((time() - $filelastmodified) > 24*3600) will select files older than 24 hours (24 hours times 3600 seconds per hour). If you wanted days, it should read for example 7*24*3600 for files older than a week.

Also, note that filemtime returns the time of last modification of the file, instead of creation date.