A recursive remove directory function for PHP?

Question

I am using PHP to move the contents of a images subfolder

GalleryName/images/

into another folder. After the move, I need to del

Answer 1

I prefer an enhaced method derived from the php help pages http://php.net/manual/en/function.rmdir.php#115598

 // check accidential empty, root or relative pathes
 if (!empty($path) && ...)
 {
  if (PHP_OS === 'Windows')
  {
    exec('rd /s /q "'.$path.'"');
  }
  else
  {
      exec('rm -rf "'.$path.'"');
  }
}
else
{
    error_log('path not valid:$path'.var_export($path, true));
}

reasons for my decision:

• less code
• speed
• keep it simple

Answer 2

There is another thread with more examples here: How do I recursively delete a directory and its entire contents (files + sub dirs) in PHP?

If you are using Yii then you can leave it to the framework:

CFileHelper::removeDirectory($my_directory);

Answer 3

What about this?

foreach(new RecursiveIteratorIterator(new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($dirPath, FilesystemIterator::SKIP_DOTS), RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST) as $path) {
        $path->isDir() && !$path->isLink() ? rmdir($path->getPathname()) : unlink($path->getPathname());
}
rmdir($dirPath);

Answer 4

I've adapted a function which handles hidden unix files with the dot prefix and uses glob:

public static function deleteDir($path) {
    if (!is_dir($path)) {
        throw new InvalidArgumentException("$path is not a directory");
    }
    if (substr($path, strlen($path) - 1, 1) != '/') {
        $path .= '/';
    }
    $dotfiles = glob($path . '.*', GLOB_MARK);
    $files = glob($path . '*', GLOB_MARK);
    $files = array_merge($files, $dotfiles);
    foreach ($files as $file) {
        if (basename($file) == '.' || basename($file) == '..') {
            continue;
        } else if (is_dir($file)) {
            self::deleteDir($file);
        } else {
            unlink($file);
        }
    }
    rmdir($path);
}

Answer 5

If the server of application runs linux, just use the shell_exec() function, and provide it the rm -R command, like this:

    $realPath = realpath($dir_path);

    if($realPath === FALSE){
         throw new \Exception('Directory does not exist');
    }

    shell_exec("rm ". escapeshellarg($realPath) ." -R");

Explanation:

Removes the specified directory recursively only if the path exists and escapes the path so that it can only be used as a shell argument to avoid shell command injection.

If you wouldnt use escapeshellarg one could execute commands by naming the directory to be removed after a command.

Answer 6

public static function rrmdir($dir)
{
    if (is_dir($dir)) {
        $files = scandir($dir);
        foreach ($files as $file) {
            if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
                if (filetype($dir . "/" . $file) == "dir")
                    self::rrmdir($dir . "/" . $file);
                else
                    unlink($dir . "/" . $file);
            }
        }
        reset($files);
        rmdir($dir);
    }
}