glob

(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

glob寻找与模式匹配的文件路径

说明

glob ( string $pattern , int $flags = 0 ) : array

glob() 函数依照 libc glob() 函数使用的规则寻找所有与 pattern 匹配的文件路径,类似于一般 shells 所用的规则一样。

参数

pattern

匹配模式(pattern)。 不进行缩写扩展或参数替代。

特殊字符:

  • * - 匹配零个或多个字符。
  • ? - 只匹配单个字符(任意字符)。
  • [...] - 匹配一组字符中的一个字符。 如果第一个字符是 !,则为否定模式, 即匹配不在这组字符中的任意字符。
  • \ - 只要没有使用 GLOB_NOESCAPE 标记,该字符会转义后面的字符。

flags

有效标记有:

  • GLOB_MARK - 在每个返回的项目中加一个斜线
  • GLOB_NOSORT - 按照文件在目录中出现的原始顺序返回(不排序)
  • GLOB_NOCHECK - 如果没有文件匹配则返回用于搜索的模式
  • GLOB_NOESCAPE - 反斜线不转义元字符
  • GLOB_BRACE - 扩充 {a,b,c} 来匹配 'a','b' 或 'c'
  • GLOB_ONLYDIR - 仅返回与模式匹配的目录项
  • GLOB_ERR - 停止并读取错误信息(比如说不可读的目录),默认的情况下忽略所有错误

返回值

返回包含有匹配文件和目录的数组,没有匹配文件时返回空数组,出错返回 false

Note:

在个别操作系统上,无法区分是否为空匹配或错误。

范例

Example #1 怎样用 glob() 方便地替代 opendir() 和相关函数

<?php
foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {
    echo 
"$filename size " filesize($filename) . "\n";
}
?>

以上例程的输出类似于:

funclist.txt size 44686
funcsummary.txt size 267625
quickref.txt size 137820

注释

Note: 此函数不能作用于远程文件,被检查的文件必须是可通过服务器的文件系统访问的。

Note: 此函数在一些系统上还不能工作(例如一些旧的 Sun OS)。

Note: GLOB_BRACE 在一些非 GNU 系统上无效,比如 Solaris。

参见

User Contributed Notes

Philo 09-Apr-2021 11:08
It is also possible to nest alternations like this:
<?php
foreach (glob("{$dir}/*.{[jJ][pP]{,[eE]}[gG],[tT][iI][fF]{,[fF]}}", GLOB_BRACE) as $file) {
   
// finds both .jp(e)g and .tif(f) files
    // please note that you should double-check the file type, though
}
bitman at biitworks dot de 22-Mar-2021 07:22
Brackets in the pattern maust be bracketed:

Filename = " [Fail2Ban] recidive *.eml" 

The pattern should be: 

    $pattern = '[[]Fail2Ban[]] recidive *.eml';

Otherwise the brackets will be treated as character class identifier.
Anonymous 25-Jan-2021 12:25
Include dotfiles excluding . and .. special dirs with .[!.]*

<?php
$all_files
= array_merge(glob('.[!.]*'), glob('*'));
// or
$all_files = glob('{.[!.],}*', GLOB_BRACE);
?>
davewho at nexicom dot net 29-Dec-2020 03:09
Note that if you use braces ie. /*.{gif,jpg,htm} then glob returns
gifs before jpgs before htm files rather than in filename sequence.
vincewansink at outlook dot com 17-Oct-2019 09:05
Note that when the documentation says the files will be returned in "alphabetical" order, you may not get the results you expect if your files are numbered.

For example, files will be returned in the following order:

file.1.txt
file.10.txt
file.2.txt

Not (as you might expect):

file.1.txt
file.2.txt
file.10.txt
simon at paragi dot dk 02-Jun-2016 07:31
This is a simple and versatile function that returns an array tree of files, matching wildcards:

<?php
// List files in tree, matching wildcards * and ?
function tree($path){
  static
$match;

 
// Find the real directory part of the path, and set the match parameter
 
$last=strrpos($path,"/");
  if(!
is_dir($path)){
   
$match=substr($path,$last);
    while(!
is_dir($path=substr($path,0,$last)) && $last!==false)
     
$last=strrpos($path,"/",-1);
  }
  if(empty(
$match)) $match="/*";
  if(!
$path=realpath($path)) return;

 
// List files
 
foreach(glob($path.$match) as $file){
   
$list[]=substr($file,strrpos($file,"/")+1);
  } 

 
// Process sub directories
 
foreach(glob("$path/*", GLOB_ONLYDIR) as $dir){
   
$list[substr($dir,strrpos($dir,"/",-1)+1)]=tree($dir);
  }
 
  return @
$list;
}
?>
sebastian dot wasser at gmail dot com 23-Apr-2016 11:50
I created a rglob function to support a '/**/' wildcard. You can even set the order to post-order or pre-order traversal.

<?php

function rglob ($pattern, $flags = 0, $traversePostOrder = false) {
   
// Keep away the hassles of the rest if we don't use the wildcard anyway
   
if (strpos($pattern, '/**/') === false) {
        return
glob($pattern, $flags);
    }

   
$patternParts = explode('/**/', $pattern);

   
// Get sub dirs
   
$dirs = glob(array_shift($patternParts) . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR | GLOB_NOSORT);

   
// Get files for current dir
   
$files = glob($pattern, $flags);

    foreach (
$dirs as $dir) {
       
$subDirContent = rglob($dir . '/**/' . implode('/**/', $patternParts), $flags, $traversePostOrder);

        if (!
$traversePostOrder) {
           
$files = array_merge($files, $subDirContent);
        } else {
           
$files = array_merge($subDirContent, $files);
        }
    }

    return
$files;
};

?>
sharshun dot aliaksandr at gmail dot com 04-Nov-2015 02:26
<?php

function glob_recursive($pattern, $flags = 0){
// forked from https://github.com/rodurma/PHP-Functions/
    // blob/master/glob_recursive.php
 
$files = glob($pattern, $flags);
      
  foreach (
glob(dirname($pattern).'/*',
     
GLOB_ONLYDIR|GLOB_NOSORT) as $dir){
   
$files = array_merge($files, glob_recursive
       
($dir.'/'.basename($pattern), $flags));
  }
  return
$files;
}
// $a=glob_recursive('c:/test_directory/'."*.*");
// print_r($a);

function dirInfoReGet($s){
   
$a=glob_recursive($s."*.*");
   
$ar=glob_recursive($s."**/**");
   
$arr=array_unique(array_merge($a, $ar));

    foreach (
$arr as $v) {
        if (
is_dir($v)) {
           
$arra[0][]=$v.'/';
        } else {
           
$arra[1][]=$v;
        }
    }
   
sort($arra);
    return
$arra;
}
$a=dirInfoReGet('c:/test_directory/');
print_r($a);

?>

http://i.stack.imgur.com/H7UF3.jpg

Best regards.
Anxiety35 at gmail dot com 01-Dec-2014 09:20
After fiddling with GLOB_BRACE a bunch, I have found the most items that can be included in the braces is about 10 before glob no longer returns any matches.

I have a scenario where there can be a thousand or more files to check for where I can't pattern match and need to check specific names. I was hoping to batch them in large groups to see if it would help performance. However, if I include more than 10 in a GLOB_BRACE the function will return FALSE.
rene dot rathmann at gmx dot de 02-Jan-2014 11:05
You can do a recursive file search with yield.

<?php
function findAllDirs($start) {
   
$dirStack=[$start];
    while(
$dir=array_shift($dirStack)) {
       
$ar=glob($dir.'/*',GLOB_ONLYDIR|GLOB_NOSORT);
        if(!
$ar) continue;

       
$dirStack=array_merge($dirStack,$ar);
        foreach(
$ar as $DIR)
            yield
$DIR;
    }
}

$fname='*.php';
$result=[];
foreach(
findAllDirs('/var/www/localhost') as $dir) {
   
$match=glob($dir.'/'.$fname,GLOB_NOSORT);
    if(!
$match) continue;
   
$result=array_merge($result,$match);
}

print_r($result);
?>
soywiz at gmail dot com 26-Apr-2013 10:26
Recursive glob for PHP>=5.5

function globRecursive($path, $find) {
    $dh = opendir($path);
    while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false) {
        if (substr($file, 0, 1) == '.') continue;
        $rfile = "{$path}/{$file}";
        if (is_dir($rfile)) {
            foreach (globRecursive($rfile, $find) as $ret) {
                yield $ret;
            }
        } else {
            if (fnmatch($find, $file)) yield $rfile;
        }
    }
    closedir($dh);
}
bimal at sanjaal dot com 07-Mar-2013 04:28
To pick one of the file randomly from your directory with full physical path, you can write something like this:

<?php
function one_random_image_file()
{
   
$files = glob('../images/*.jpg');
   
shuffle($files);
    return
realpath($files[0]);
}
$image_to_read = one_random_image_file();
?>
agd243 at gmail dot com 27-Jan-2013 02:45
A simple function that find all files by extension an return it by an array.
<?php
function findFiles($directory, $extensions = array()) {
    function
glob_recursive($directory, &$directories = array()) {
        foreach(
glob($directory, GLOB_ONLYDIR | GLOB_NOSORT) as $folder) {
           
$directories[] = $folder;
           
glob_recursive("{$folder}/*", $directories);
        }
    }
   
glob_recursive($directory, $directories);
   
$files = array ();
    foreach(
$directories as $directory) {
        foreach(
$extensions as $extension) {
            foreach(
glob("{$directory}/*.{$extension}") as $file) {
               
$files[$extension][] = $file;
            }
        }
    }
    return
$files;
}
var_dump(findFiles("C:", array (

   
"jpg",
   
"pdf",
   
"png",
   
"html"
)));
?>
Gabriel S. Luraschi 30-Oct-2012 06:54
Use this to exclude hidden files on MS Windows.

<?php
exec
("dir \"{$path}\" /A:-H /B", $result);
?>
ni dot pineau at gmail dot com 12-Oct-2012 04:08
Note that in case you are using braces with glob you might retrieve duplicated entries for files that matche more than one item :

<?php

$a
= glob('/path/*{foo,bar}.dat',GLOB_BRACE);
print_r($a);

?>

Result :
Array
(
    [0] => /path/file_foo.dat
    [1] => /path/file_foobar.dat
    [2] => /path/file_foobar.dat
)
Sam Bryan 26-Apr-2012 04:13
glob is case sensitive, even on Windows systems.

It does support character classes though, so a case insensitive version of
<?php glob('my/dir/*.csv') ?>

could be written as
<?php glob('my/dir/*.[cC][sS][vV]') ?>
Mike 21-Nov-2011 07:48
<?php

if ( ! function_exists('glob_recursive'))
{
   
// Does not support flag GLOB_BRACE
   
   
function glob_recursive($pattern, $flags = 0)
    {
       
$files = glob($pattern, $flags);
       
        foreach (
glob(dirname($pattern).'/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR|GLOB_NOSORT) as $dir)
        {
           
$files = array_merge($files, glob_recursive($dir.'/'.basename($pattern), $flags));
        }
       
        return
$files;
    }
}

?>
mkas at destiny dot lt 05-Oct-2011 12:58
recursive file search

<?php
$path
[] = 'starting_place/*';

while(
count($path) != 0)
{
   
$v = array_shift($path);
    foreach(
glob($v) as $item)
    {
        if (
is_dir($item))
           
$path[] = $item . '/*';
        elseif (
is_file($item))
        {
            
//do something
       
}
    }
}
?>
Ultimater at gmail dot com 20-Mar-2011 11:44
glob() isn't limited to one directory:

<?php
$results
=glob("{includes/*.php,core/*.php}",GLOB_BRACE);
echo
'<pre>',print_r($results,true),'</pre>';
?>

Just be careful when using GLOB_BRACE regarding spaces around the comma:
{includes/*.php,core/*.php} works as expected, but
{includes/*.php, core/*.php} with a leading space, will only match the former as expected but not the latter
unless you have a directory named " core" on your machine with a leading space.
PHP can create such directories quite easily like so:
mkdir(" core");
david dot schueler at tel-billig dot de 15-Mar-2011 06:32
Don't use glob() if you try to list files in a directory where very much files are stored (>100.000). You get an "Allowed memory size of XYZ bytes exhausted ..." error.
You may try to increase the memory_limit variable in php.ini. Mine has 128MB set and the script will still reach this limit while glob()ing over 500.000 files.

The more stable way is to use readdir() on very large numbers of files:
<?php
// code snippet
if ($handle = opendir($path)) {
    while (
false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
       
// do something with the file
        // note that '.' and '..' is returned even
   
}
   
closedir($handle);
}
?>
troy at troyonline dot com 28-Feb-2011 09:50
If you have open_basedir set in php.ini to limit which files php can execute, glob(...) will return false when there are no matching files.  If open_basedir is not set, the very same code will return an empty array in the same situation.

This is unfortunate as a seemingly innocuous change causes different functionality that breaks code like:

foreach(glob("*.ext") as $file)
...

See this link if you have any questions as to why this is so:
http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=47358
peter dot adrianov at gmail dot com 14-May-2010 04:29
Non-recursive search files, proceeding down directory tree.

<?php
function scandir_through($dir)
{
   
$items = glob($dir . '/*');

    for (
$i = 0; $i < count($items); $i++) {
        if (
is_dir($items[$i])) {
           
$add = glob($items[$i] . '/*');
           
$items = array_merge($items, $add);
        }
    }

    return
$items;
}
?>
BigueNique at yahoo dot ca 08-May-2010 11:45
Here is the function array_prepend() used by my latest post of safe_glob().

<?php
/**
 * Prepends $string to each element of $array
 * If $deep is true, will indeed also apply to sub-arrays
 * @author BigueNique AT yahoo DOT ca
 * @since 080324
 */
function array_prepend($array, $string, $deep=false) {
    if(empty(
$array)||empty($string)) return $array;
    foreach(
$array as $key => $element)
        if(
is_array($element))
            if(
$deep)
               
$array[$key] = array_prepend($element,$string,$deep);
            else
               
trigger_error('array_prepend: array element',E_USER_WARNING);
        else
           
$array[$key] = $string.$element;
    return
$array;
   
}
?>
wang yun 22-Sep-2009 06:00
A function to quickly remove a directory (works in seconds for a hundred thousand files)

<?php
/**
 * Remove the directory and its content (all files and subdirectories).
 * @param string $dir the directory name
 */
function rmrf($dir) {
    foreach (
glob($dir) as $file) {
        if (
is_dir($file)) {
           
rmrf("$file/*");
           
rmdir($file);
        } else {
           
unlink($file);
        }
    }
}
?>
uramihsayibok, gmail, com 04-Aug-2009 03:38
Those of you with PHP 5 don't have to come up with these wild functions to scan a directory recursively: the SPL can do it.

<?php

$dir_iterator
= new RecursiveDirectoryIterator("/path");
$iterator = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($dir_iterator, RecursiveIteratorIterator::SELF_FIRST);
// could use CHILD_FIRST if you so wish

foreach ($iterator as $file) {
    echo
$file, "\n";
}

?>

Not to mention the fact that $file will be an SplFileInfo class, so you can do powerful stuff really easily:

<?php

$size
= 0;
foreach (
$iterator as $file) {
    if (
$file->isFile()) {
        echo
substr($file->getPathname(), 27) . ": " . $file->getSize() . " B; modified " . date("Y-m-d", $file->getMTime()) . "\n";
       
$size += $file->getSize();
    }
}

echo
"\nTotal file size: ", $size, " bytes\n";

?>

\Luna\luna.msstyles: 4190352 B; modified 2008-04-13
\Luna\Shell\Homestead\shellstyle.dll: 362496 B; modified 2006-02-28
\Luna\Shell\Metallic\shellstyle.dll: 362496 B; modified 2006-02-28
\Luna\Shell\NormalColor\shellstyle.dll: 361472 B; modified 2006-02-28
\Luna.theme: 1222 B; modified 2006-02-28
\Windows Classic.theme: 3025 B; modified 2006-02-28

Total file size: 5281063 bytes
endiku 29-Jul-2009 08:47
For those who need to recursively search a directory tree and cannot or wish not to call a function within itself here is another suggestion.

I tried the previously suggested listdirs_safe() and it didn't seem to find all subfolders in a directory tree.

There are two variations on the same theme.

Single Array.
<?php
$dir
='/dir';
while(
$dirs = glob($dir . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR)) {
 
$dir .= '/*';
  if(!
$d) {
    
$d=$dirs;
   } else {
     
$d=array_merge($d,$dirs);
   }
}
?>

Multiple arrays.
<?php
$n
=0;
$dir ='/dir';
while(
$dirs = glob($dir . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR)) {
 
$dir .= '/*';
  if(!
$d) {
    
$d=$dirs;
   } else {
    
$d[$n]=$dirs;
   }
 
$n++;
}
?>

This will result in the glob looping via "dir/*/*/*/*.." until it is no longer finding a directory structure.
nuntius 06-Jul-2009 10:10
First off, it's nice to see all of the different takes on this. Thanks for all of the great examples.

Fascinated by the foreach usage I was curious how it might work with a for loop. I found that glob was well suited for this, especially compared to opendir.  The for loop is always efficient when you want to protect against a potential endless loop.

$dir=$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']."/test/directory_listing/test";
    echo $dir;
    $filesArray=glob($dir."/*.*");   
   
    $line.="<pre>";
    $line.=print_r($filesArray, true);
    $line.="</pre>";
    $line.="<hr>";
   
    for($i=0;$i<count($filesArray);$i++) {
        $line.=key($filesArray)." - ";   
        $line.=$filesArray[$i]."<br/>";
         next($filesArray);
    }

    echo $line;

Note that I pulled the glob array keys if you should need them.

Also you can tweak it for searches with something like this... (case sensitive)

$search_names="Somedocname";
$filesArray=glob($dir."/".$search_names."*.*");   
   
Enjoy!
sven at NOSPAM dot sven dot globalunix dot org 11-Jun-2009 09:22
If you want to use wildcard expressions (like they are used by glob() ) to search on strings, you can use this function:

<?php   
function match_wildcard( $wildcard_pattern, $haystack ) {
  
$regex = str_replace(
     array(
"\*", "\?"), // wildcard chars
    
array('.*','.'),   // regexp chars
    
preg_quote($wildcard_pattern)
   );

   return
preg_match('/^'.$regex.'$/is', $haystack);
}

$test = "foobar and blob\netc.";
var_dump(
   
match_wildcard('foo*', $test),      // TRUE
   
match_wildcard('bar*', $test),      // FALSE
   
match_wildcard('*bar*', $test),     // TRUE
   
match_wildcard('**blob**', $test),  // TRUE
   
match_wildcard('*a?d*', $test),     // TRUE
   
match_wildcard('*etc**', $test)     // TRUE
);
?>
r dot hartung at roberthartung dot de 04-May-2009 12:34
You can use multiple asterisks with the glob() - function.

Example:

<?php
  $paths
= glob('my/*/dir/*.php');
?>

$paths will contains paths as following examples:

- my/1/dir/xyz.php
- my/bar/dir/bar.php
- my/bar/dir/foo.php
crayonviolent at phpfreaks dot com 16-Jan-2009 11:50
Since I feel this is rather vague and non-helpful, I thought I'd make a post detailing the mechanics of the glob regex.

glob uses two special symbols that act like sort of a blend between a meta-character and a quantifier.  These two characters are the * and ?

The ? matches 1 of any character except a /
The * matches 0 or more of any character except a /

If it helps, think of the * as the pcre equivalent of .* and ? as the pcre equivalent of the dot (.)

Note: * and ? function independently from the previous character. For instance, if you do glob("a*.php") on the following list of files, all of the files starting with an 'a' will be returned, but * itself would match:

a.php // * matches nothing
aa.php // * matches the second 'a'
ab.php // * matches 'b'
abc.php // * matches 'bc'
b.php // * matches nothing, because the starting 'a' fails
bc.php // * matches nothing, because the starting 'a' fails
bcd.php // * matches nothing, because the starting 'a' fails

It does not match just a.php and aa.php as a 'normal' regex would, because it matches 0 or more of any character, not the character/class/group before it.

Executing glob("a?.php") on the same list of files will only return aa.php and ab.php because as mentioned, the ? is the equivalent of pcre's dot, and is NOT the same as pcre's ?, which would match 0 or 1 of the previous character.

glob's regex also supports character classes and negative character classes, using the syntax [] and [^]. It will match any one character inside [] or match any one character that is not in [^].

With the same list above, executing

glob("[ab]*.php) will return (all of them):
a.php  // [ab] matches 'a', * matches nothing
aa.php // [ab] matches 'a', * matches 2nd 'a'
ab.php // [ab] matches 'a', * matches 'b'
abc.php // [ab] matches 'a', * matches 'bc'
b.php // [ab] matches 'b', * matches nothing
bc.php // [ab] matches 'b', * matches 'c'
bcd.php // [ab] matches 'b', * matches 'cd'

glob("[ab].php") will return a.php and b.php

glob("[^a]*.php") will return:
b.php // [^a] matches 'b', * matches nothing
bc.php // [^a] matches 'b', * matches 'c'
bcd.php // [^a] matches 'b', * matches 'cd'

glob("[^ab]*.php") will return nothing because the character class will fail to match on the first character.

You can also use ranges of characters inside the character class by having a starting and ending character with a hyphen in between.  For example, [a-z] will match any letter between a and z, [0-9] will match any (one) number, etc..

glob also supports limited alternation with {n1, n2, etc..}.  You have to specify GLOB_BRACE as the 2nd argument for glob in order for it to work.  So for example, if you executed glob("{a,b,c}.php", GLOB_BRACE) on the following list of files:

a.php
b.php
c.php

all 3 of them would return.  Note: using alternation with single characters like that is the same thing as just doing glob("[abc].php").  A more interesting example would be glob("te{xt,nse}.php", GLOB_BRACE) on:

tent.php
text.php
test.php
tense.php

text.php and tense.php would be returned from that glob.

glob's regex does not offer any kind of quantification of a specified character or character class or alternation.  For instance, if you have the following files:

a.php
aa.php
aaa.php
ab.php
abc.php
b.php
bc.php

with pcre regex you can do ~^a+\.php$~ to return

a.php
aa.php
aaa.php

This is not possible with glob.  If you are trying to do something like this, you can first narrow it down with glob, and then get exact matches with a full flavored regex engine.  For example, if you wanted all of the php files in the previous list that only have one or more 'a' in it, you can do this:

<?php
   $list
= glob("a*.php");
   foreach (
$list as $l) {
      if (
preg_match("~^a+\.php$~",$file))
        
$files[] = $l;
   }
?>

glob also does not support lookbehinds, lookaheads, atomic groupings, capturing, or any of the 'higher level' regex functions.

glob does not support 'shortkey' meta-characters like \w or \d.
carlos dot lage at nospam at foo dot bar at gmail dot com 17-Oct-2008 06:18
I lost hours looking for the solution for this problem.
glob() wasn't eating up my directory names (stuff like "foobar[]"), and I searched online for some hours, I tried preg_quote to no avail.

I finally found the proper way to escape stuff in glob() in an obscure Python mailing list:

<?php
preg_replace
('/(\*|\?|\[)/', '[$1]', $dir_path);
?>

If you want to add a directory path before your pattern, you should do it like this:

<?php
glob
(preg_replace('/(\*|\?|\[)/', '[$1]', $dir_path).'*.txt');
?>
preg_quote WILL NOT work in all cases (if any).
heavyraptor at gmail dot com 19-May-2008 04:56
glob() (array_sum() and array_map() in fact too) can be very useful if you want to calculate the sum of all the files' sizes located in a directory:

<?php
$bytes
= array_sum(array_map('filesize',glob('*')));
?>

Unfortunately there's no way to do this recursively, using glob() (as far as I know).
pope at q dot com 23-Apr-2008 06:08
alan at ridersite dot org 18-Mar-2007 03:26 -- Stated '*.*' is the same as '*' -- This is not true as * alone will return directories too and *.* will only return files with an extension such as .pdf or .doc or .php.
alan at synergymx dot com 15-Apr-2008 12:08
Here is a function that returns specific files in an array, with all of the details. Includes some basic garbage checking.

Variables

$source_folder // the location of your files
$ext // file extension you want to limit to (i.e.: *.txt)
$sec // if you only want files that are at least so old.

The function

function glob_files($source_folder, $ext, $sec, $limit){
    if( !is_dir( $source_folder ) ) {
        die ( "Invalid directory.\n\n" );
    }
   
    $FILES = glob($source_folder."\*.".$ext);
    $set_limit    = 0;
   
    foreach($FILES as $key => $file) {
   
        if( $set_limit == $limit )    break;
       
        if( filemtime( $file ) > $sec ){
       
            $FILE_LIST[$key]['path']    = substr( $file, 0, ( strrpos( $file, "\\" ) +1 ) );
            $FILE_LIST[$key]['name']    = substr( $file, ( strrpos( $file, "\\" ) +1 ) );   
            $FILE_LIST[$key]['size']    = filesize( $file );
            $FILE_LIST[$key]['date']    = date('Y-m-d G:i:s', filemtime( $file ) );
            $set_limit++;
       
        }
       
    }
    if(!empty($FILE_LIST)){
        return $FILE_LIST;
    } else {
        die( "No files found!\n\n" );
    }
}

So....

$source_folder = "c:\temp\my_videos";
$ext = "flv"; // flash video files
$sec = "7200"; // files older than 2 hours
$limit = 2;

print_r(glob_files($source_folder, $ext, $sec, $limit));

Would return:

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [path] => c:\temp\my_videos\
            [name] => fluffy_bunnies.flv
            [size] => 21160480
            [date] => 2007-10-30 16:48:05
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [path] => c:\temp\my_videos\
            [name] => synergymx.com.flv
            [size] => 14522744
            [date] => 2007-10-25 15:34:45
        )
eric at muyser dot com 11-Apr-2008 08:31
As a follow up to recursively determining all paths (by viajy at yoyo dot org) and opendir being faster than glob (by Sam Yong - hellclanner at live [dot] com).

The list all dirs code didn't seem to work, at least on my server (provided by parazuce [at] gmail [dot] com).

I needed a function to create an unlimited multidimensional array, with the names of the folders/files intact (no realpath's, although that is easily possible). This is so I can simply loop through the array, create an expandable link on the folder name, with all the files inside it.

This is the correct way to recurse I believe (no static, return small arrays to build up the multidimensional array), and includes a check for files/folders beginning with dots.

// may need modifications

function list_files($path)
{
    $files = array();
   
    if(is_dir($path))
    {
        if($handle = opendir($path))
        {
            while(($name = readdir($handle)) !== false)
            {
                if(!preg_match("#^\.#", $name))
                if(is_dir($path . "/" . $name))
                {
                    $files[$name] = list_files($path . "/" . $name);
                }
                else
                {
                    $files[] = $name;
                }
            }
           
            closedir($handle);
        }
    }

    return $files;
}

print_r(list_files("/path/to/folder"));

// example usage

function list_html($list)
{
    $html = "";
   
    foreach($list as $folder => $file)
    {
        if(is_array($list[$folder]))
        {
            $html .= "> (folder) " . $folder . "<br>";
            $html .= list_html($list[$folder]);
        }
        else
        {
            $html .= " (file) " . $file . "<br>";
        }
    }
   
    return $html;
}

echo list_html(list_files("/path/to/folder"));
parazuce [at] gmail [dot] com 30-Mar-2008 05:47
As a response to a post by viajy at yoyo dot org on 10-Feb-2007 04:50, he posted the following code:
<?php
function listdirs($dir) {
    static
$alldirs = array();
   
$dirs = glob($dir . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR);
    if (
count($dirs) > 0) {
        foreach (
$dirs as $d) $alldirs[] = $d;
    }
    foreach (
$dirs as $dir) listdirs($dir);
    return
$alldirs;
}
?>

It is not best practice to use recursive functions like that, so I wrote a safe (non-recursive) function below:

<?php
function listdirs_safe($start)
{
   
$dir  = $start;
   
$dirs = array();
   
$next = 0;

    while (
true)
    {
       
$_dirs = glob($dir.'/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR);

        if (
count($_dirs) > 0)
        {
            foreach (
$_dirs as $key => $_dir)
               
$dirs[] = $_dir;
        }
        else
            break;
           
       
$dir = $dirs[$next++];
    }
   
    return
$dirs;
}
?>

Example:

print_r(listdirs_safe('*'));

Output:
Array
(
    [0] => Dummy folder/Dummy folder 2
    [1] => Dummy folder/Dummy folder 2/Dummy Folder 3
    [2] => Dummy folder/Dummy folder 2/Dummy Folder 3/4
    [3] => Dummy folder/Dummy folder 2/Dummy Folder 3/Dummy folder 4
    [4] => Dummy folder/Dummy folder 2/Dummy Folder 3/4/5
)
nataxia at gmail dot com 07-May-2007 04:05
Something I used to sort dir & subdir into array (multidimensional) reflecting dir structure.

    function getRecursiveFolderList($curDir,$currentA=false)
      {                   
        $dirs = glob($curDir . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR);    
       
        $cur = 0;
        foreach($dirs as $dir)
          {
            $currentA[$cur]['path'] = $dir;
            $currentA[$cur] = $this->getRecursiveFolderList($dir,$currentA[$cur]);
               
            ++$cur;
          }

        return $currentA;
      }
alan at ridersite dot org 18-Mar-2007 11:26
A couple of notes:
glob() handles symbolic filesystem links and resolves references to './', '../'  nicely and handles an extra '/' character , at least on X-systems. e.g., glob("../*") will do next higher dir.

This is good to use so warnings or errors show as "../foo" and not your system's full path. 

Several of the examples use a notation "*.*" when just plain "*" does the same thing.  The "*.*" notation is misleading as it implies foo.ext will not be found with "*" because the "." is not present.

Watch the flags must not be strings. They are defined constants. Thus,
glob("../*", GLOB_ONLYDIR)  works;
glob("../*", "GLOB_ONLYDIR")  does not.
viajy at yoyo dot org 10-Feb-2007 04:50
this is a recursive function i wrote to return an array of all subdirectories of a dir

function listdirs($dir) {
    static $alldirs = array();
    $dirs = glob($dir . '/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR);
    if (count($dirs) > 0) {
        foreach ($dirs as $d) $alldirs[] = $d;
    }
    foreach ($dirs as $dir) listdirs($dir);
    return $alldirs;
}

example:
print_r(listdirs('/some/path'));
lesion at autistici dot org 04-Dec-2006 08:14
Maybe all of you still know this, but it seems that if the directory contains some unresolved symlink, glob() simply ignore those files.
torch at torchsdomain dot com 22-Nov-2006 12:25
Here is simple function that will find and remove all files (except "." ones) that match the expression ($match, "*" as wildcard) under starting directory ($path) and all other directories under it.

function rfr($path,$match){
   static $deld = 0, $dsize = 0;
   $dirs = glob($path."*");
   $files = glob($path.$match);
   foreach($files as $file){
      if(is_file($file)){
         $dsize += filesize($file);
         unlink($file);
         $deld++;
      }
   }
   foreach($dirs as $dir){
      if(is_dir($dir)){
         $dir = basename($dir) . "/";
         rfr($path.$dir,$match);
      }
   }
   return "$deld files deleted with a total size of $dsize bytes";
}
guilleva at gmail dot com 19-Oct-2006 08:54
In some systems (AIX for example) GLOB_BRACE isn't defined and you get the error:
glob() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /XX/XX.php

<?

foreach (glob("{*.pdf,*.PDF}",GLOB_BRACE ) as $filename) {
      echo "$filename \n";
}

?>

The method may help you in this case.

<?

foreach (array_merge(glob("*.pdf"),glob("*.PDF")) as $filename) {
      echo "$filename \n";
}

?>
joseph dot morphy at gmail dot com 16-Aug-2006 11:01
<?php
$html_array
= glob("*.html");

function
sort_by_mtime($file1,$file2) {
   
$time1 = filemtime($file1);
   
$time2 = filemtime($file2);
    if (
$time1 == $time2) {
        return
0;
    }
    return (
$time1 < $time2) ? 1 : -1;
    }

usort($html_array,"sort_by_mtime");
//$html_array is now ordered by the time it was last modified
?>
redcube at gmx dot de 14-Aug-2006 02:22
Please note that glob('*') ignores all 'hidden' files by default. This means it does not return files that start with a dot (e.g. ".file").
If you want to match those files too, you can use "{,.}*" as the pattern with the GLOB_BRACE flag.

<?php
// Search for all files that match .* or *
$files = glob('{,.}*', GLOB_BRACE);
?>

Note: This also returns the directory special entries . and ..
info at urbits dot com 06-Jan-2006 04:26
I have been working towards a CMS-type design that is both modular and quite flat. For example, included files are all one level below the installation folder.

glob() just help me get rid of a lot of opendir() hassle. I wasn't sure if the double asterix would work - but it's fine:

foreach (glob(SERVER_PATH."/*/includes/*.php") as $inc) {
   require($inc);
}
DMan 28-Aug-2005 12:59
Whilst on Windows, a path starting with a slash resolves OK for most file functions - but NOT glob.
If the server is LAUNCHED (or chdir()ed) to W:, then
file_exists("/temp/test.txt")
returns true for the file "W:/temp/test.txt".
But glob("/temp/*.txt") FAILS to find it!

A solution (if you want to avoid getting drive letters into your code) is to chdir() first, then just look for the file.
<?php
$glob
="/temp/*.txt";
chdir(dirname($glob));
// getcwd() is now actually "W:\temp" or whatever

foreach (glob(basename($glob)) as $filename) {
  
$filepath = dirname($glob)."/".$filename; // must re-attach full path
  
echo "$filepath size " . filesize($filepath) . "\n";
}
?>

Note also, glob() IS case sensitive although most other file funcs on Windows are not.
NOSPAM sketch at infinite dot net dot au 14-Mar-2005 05:05
in the example below, i found i got an error if the directory was empty.

<?php
foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {
   echo
"$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";
}
?>

I think its because glob()'ing an empty directory returns false, and so calling foreach (false as $value) will obviously break.

to fix this, i did the following:
<?php
$files
= glob("*.txt) or array(); // give it an empty array if the directory is empty or glob fails otherwise
   echo "
$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";
}
?>

Hope this helps someone
23-Jan-2005 01:54
The example on this page will generate a warning if the glob function does not find any filenames that match the pattern.

The glob function result will only be an array if it finds some files and the foreach statement requires its argument to be an array.

By checking for the possibility that the result of the glob function may not be an array you can eliminate the warning.

Here's a better example:

<?php
$matches
= glob("*.txt");
if (
is_array ( $matches ) ) {
   foreach (
$matches as $filename) {
      echo
"$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";
   }
}
?>