PHP Manual: Open directory handle

Description

resourcefalse opendir(string $directory, resourcenull $context = null)

Opens up a directory handle to be used in subsequent closedir, readdir, and rewinddir calls.

Parameters

directory: The directory path to open.
context: For a description of the context parameter, refer to the streams section of the manual.

Return Values

Returns a directory handle on success, or false on failure

Errors/Exceptions

Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.

This may happen if directory is not a valid directory, the directory can not be opened due to permission restrictions, or due to filesystem errors.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.0.0	`context` is now nullable.

Examples

Example #1 List all entries in a directory, skipping the special . and .. directories

Because file and directory names can be strings that PHP considers "falsy" (e.g. a directory named "0") and readdir returns false when it has read all entries in a directory one needs to use the === comparison operator to properly distinguish between a directory entry whose name is "falsy" and having read all entries of the directory.

<?php

if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/files')) {
    echo "Entries:\n";

    /* Correctly handling directory entries that may be considered falsy */
    while (false !== ($entry = readdir($handle))) {
        if ($entry === '.' || $entry === '..') {
            continue;
        }
        echo "$entry\n";
    }

    closedir($handle);
}
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Entries:
base
en
fr
output.md
test.php

opendir