CODEWITHSUNDEEP
php
David19801
David19801

Reputation: 11448

PHP read directory sorting?

I have:

$directory='testdirectory/';
$handler = opendir($directory);
while ($file = readdir($handler)) {
...
}

What is the output of opendir/readdir like this sorted by? Is it date, alphabetical or something else because I cannot tell from the output.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 947

Answers (2)

DaveRandom
DaveRandom

Reputation: 88647

As has been covered, it is hard to control the order in which readdir() lists files. This function may help you - it takes the path to a directory, creates a list of them in an associative array and sorts them according to name, size or accessed/modified/created time. Hopefully it's usage should be fairly self explanatory.

// Constants to make usage more reader-friendly
define('DIR_SORT_NAME',  1);
define('DIR_SORT_SIZE',  2);
define('DIR_SORT_ATIME', 3);
define('DIR_SORT_MTIME', 4);
define('DIR_SORT_CTIME', 5);

function readdir_sorted_array ($dir, $sortCol = DIR_SORT_NAME, $sortDir = SORT_ASC) {

  // Validate arguments
  $dir = rtrim(str_replace('\\', '/', $dir), '/');
  $sortCol = (int) ($sortCol >= 1 && $sortCol <= 5) ? $sortCol : 1;
  $sortDir = ($sortDir == SORT_ASC) ? SORT_ASC : SORT_DESC;
  $name = $size = $aTime = $mTime = $cTime = $table = array();

  // Open the directory, return FALSE if we can't
  if (!is_dir($dir) || (!$dp = opendir($dir))) return FALSE;

  // Fetch a list of files in the directory and get stats
  for ($i = 0; ($file = readdir($dp)) !== FALSE; $i++) {
    if (!in_array($file, array('.','..'))) {
      $path = "$dir/$file";
      $row = array('name'=>$file,'size'=>filesize($path),'atime'=>fileatime($path),'mtime'=>filemtime($path),'ctime'=>filectime($path));
      $name[$i] = $row['name'];
      $size[$i] = $row['size'];
      $aTime[$i] = $row['atime'];
      $mTime[$i] = $row['mtime'];
      $cTime[$i] = $row['ctime'];
      $table[$i] = $row;
    }
  }

  // Sort the results
  switch ($sortCol) {
    case DIR_SORT_NAME:
      array_multisort($name, $sortDir, $table);
      break;
    case DIR_SORT_SIZE:
      array_multisort($size, $sortDir, $name, SORT_ASC, $table);
      break;
    case DIR_SORT_ATIME:
      array_multisort($aTime, $sortDir, $name, SORT_ASC, $table);
      break;
    case DIR_SORT_MTIME:
      array_multisort($mTime, $sortDir, $name, SORT_ASC, $table);
      break;
    case DIR_SORT_CTIME:
      array_multisort($cTime, $sortDir, $name, SORT_ASC, $table);
      break;
  }

  // Return the result
  return $table;

}

Upvotes: 2

Tatu Ulmanen
Tatu Ulmanen

Reputation: 124768

http://php.net/readdir says: "The entries are returned in the order in which they are stored by the filesystem."

Upvotes: 4

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