Laravel Delete File

Question

I have a test.txt file in my Laravel public folder which I simply want to delete from my controller by using

unlink('public/test.txt');

Whenever I try to run, I keep getting a 'file not found' error

ErrorException in WidgetController.php line 32: unlink('public/test.txt'): No such file or directory

What seems to be the problem here?

Answer 1

The public_path function returns the fully qualified path to the public directory and the base_path function returns the fully qualified path to the project root.

So if you want to reach a file in public folder you can use public_path() like this:

unlink(public_path("test.txt"));

You can also use File:delete instead of unlink like this:

use File;
File::delete(public_path("test.txt"));

Answer 2

Use app_path to delete the file. More about the paths here

$file_path = app_path("test.txt"); // app_path("public/test.txt");
if(File::exists($file_path)) File::delete($file_path);