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PHP file reading error

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Join Date: Feb 2008

Posts: 11

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coffeepot! coffeepot! is offline

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PHP file reading error

Feb 24th, 2008

Hi all,

Can anyone shed any light on this really simple problem please?

I need to read a list of files in a directory on a server. I am using PHP to do something like this...

 Help with Code Tags 
 PHP Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
$counter=0;
if ($handle = opendir($dir)) {
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
       if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
       		$filetype=(pathinfo($file));
$counter=0;
if ($handle = opendir($dir)) {
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
       if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
       		$filetype=(pathinfo($file));

I then decide using an if(($filetype[extension]=="txt")||($filetype... to choose what to do with the file.

The problem is this. the readdir($handle) function does not return filenames if the filename has a blank space within its name. So it will read "myfile.txt" okay, but will skip "my file.txt" the problem seems to be the space in the filename because if I manually remove the spaces (from my test files) the function works perfectly well.

Oh and by the way, unfortunately I cannot guarantee file-name consistency in here, so I have to assume there will be names with spaces!

Any suggestions would be really appreciated. thanks in advance, JohnB.

Last edited by MattEvans; Feb 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm. Reason: Please use code tags

Anything one man can make - another man will try to break.

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Join Date: Mar 2008

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petr.pavel petr.pavel is offline

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Re: PHP file reading error

Mar 13th, 2008

Hi John,
I'm reluctant to believe you on the spaces issue with readdir(). I checked the manual and nobody in the discussion has ever mentioned it. Maybe you think that it skips the files but in fact, something else down the road in your script does.

Anyways, try using glob() instead. It will make your script look prettier :-)
Something along these lines:

 Help with Code Tags 
 php Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
$pattern = "$dir/*.txt";
$files = glob($pattern);
var_dump($files);
...
$pattern = "$dir/*.txt";
$files = glob($pattern);
var_dump($files);
...

Petr 'PePa' Pavel

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