glob
(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5)
glob — Find pathnames matching a pattern
Description
The glob() function searches for all the pathnames matching pattern according to the rules used by the libc glob() function, which is similar to the rules used by common shells.
Parameters
- pattern
-
The pattern. No tilde expansion or parameter substitution is done.
- flags
-
Valid flags:
- GLOB_MARK - Adds a slash to each directory returned
- GLOB_NOSORT - Return files as they appear in the directory (no sorting)
- GLOB_NOCHECK - Return the search pattern if no files matching it were found
- GLOB_NOESCAPE - Backslashes do not quote metacharacters
- GLOB_BRACE - Expands {a,b,c} to match 'a', 'b', or 'c'
- GLOB_ONLYDIR - Return only directory entries which match the pattern
- GLOB_ERR - Stop on read errors (like unreadable directories), by default errors are ignored.
Return Values
Returns an array containing the matched files/directories, an empty array if no file matched or FALSE on error.
Note:
On some systems it is impossible to distinguish between empty match and an error.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.1.0 | GLOB_ERR was added |
| 4.3.3 | GLOB_ONLYDIR became available on Windows and other systems not using the GNU C library |
Examples
Example #1 Convenient way how glob() can replace opendir() and friends.
<?php
foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {
echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";
}
?>
The above example will output something similar to:
funclist.txt size 44686 funcsummary.txt size 267625 quickref.txt size 137820
Notes
Note: This function will not work on remote files as the file to be examined must be accessible via the server's filesystem.
Note: This function isn't available on some systems (e.g. old Sun OS).
Note: The GLOB_BRACE flag is not available on some non GNU systems, like Solaris.
See Also
- opendir() - Open directory handle
- readdir() - Read entry from directory handle
- closedir() - Close directory handle
- fnmatch() - Match filename against a pattern