Directory Functions
PHP Manual

dir

Return an instance of the Directory class

Description

Directory dir ( string $directory [, resource $context ] )

A pseudo-object oriented mechanism for reading a directory. The given directory is opened.

Parameters

directory

Directory to open

context

Note: Context support was added with PHP 5.0.0. For a description of contexts, refer to Streams.

Return Values

Returns an instance of Directory, or NULL with wrong parameters, or FALSE in case of another error.

Examples

Example #1 dir example

Please note the fashion in which Directory::read's return value is checked in the example below. We are explicitly testing whether the return value is identical to (equal to and of the same type as - see Comparison Operators for more information) FALSE since otherwise, any directory entry whose name evaluates to FALSE will stop the loop.

<?php
$d = dir("/etc/php5");
echo "Handle: " . $d->handle . "\n";
echo "Path: " . $d->path . "\n";
while (false !== ($entry = $d->read())) {
   echo $entry."\n";
}
$d->close();
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Handle: Resource id #2
Path: /etc/php5
.
..
apache
cgi
cli

Notes

Note:

The order in which directory entries are returned by the read method is system-dependent.