How do I recursively delete a directory and its en

Question

How do I delete a directory and its entire contents (files and subdirectories) in PHP?

Answer 1

Have you tried the first note in the manual page of rmdir?

 function rrmdir($dir) { 
   if (is_dir($dir)) { 
     $objects = scandir($dir); 
     foreach ($objects as $object) { 
       if ($object != "." && $object != "..") { 
         if (is_dir($dir."/".$object))
           rrmdir($dir."/".$object);
         else
           unlink($dir."/".$object); 
       } 
     }
     rmdir($dir); 
   } 
 }

Answer 2

Example with glob() function. It will delete all files and folders recursively, including files that starts with dot.

delete_all( 'folder' );

function delete_all( $item ) {
    if ( is_dir( $item ) ) {
        array_map( 'delete_all', array_diff( glob( "$item/{,.}*", GLOB_BRACE ), array( "$item/.", "$item/.." ) ) );
        rmdir( $item );
    } else {
        unlink( $item );
    }
};

Answer 3

Once you finish running tests , just remove # from the #unlink and #rmdir in the class .

<?php 
class RMRFiles {

        function __construct(){
        }

    public function recScan( $mainDir, $allData = array() )
    {

    // hide files
    $hidefiles = array(
    ".",
    "..") ;

    //start reading directory
    $dirContent = scandir( $mainDir ) ;

        //cycle through
        foreach ( $dirContent as $key => $content )
        {
            $path = $mainDir . '/' . $content ;

            // if is readable / file
            if ( ! in_array( $content, $hidefiles ) )
            {
            if ( is_file( $path ) && is_readable( $path ) )
            {
            #delete files within directory
            #unlink($path);
            $allData['unlink'][] = $path ;
            }

            // if is readable / directory
            else
            if ( is_dir( $path ) && is_readable( $path ) )
            {
            /*recursive*/
            $allData = $this->recScan( $path, $allData ) ;

            #finally remove directory
            $allData['rmdir'][]=$path;
            #rmdir($path);
            }
            }
        }

    return $allData ;

    }

}

header("Content-Type: text/plain");

/* Get absolute path of the running script 
Ex : /home/user/public_html/   */
define('ABPATH', dirname(__file__) . '/'); 

/* The folder where we store cache files 
Ex: /home/user/public_html/var/cache   */
define('STOREDIR','var/cache'); 

$rmrf = new RMRFiles();
#here we delete folder content files & directories
print_r($rmrf->recScan(ABPATH.STOREDIR));
#finally delete scanned directory ? 
#rmdir(ABPATH.STOREDIR);

?>

Answer 4

The 100% working solution

public static function rmdir_recursive($directory, $delete_parent = null)
  {
    $files = glob($directory . '/{,.}[!.,!..]*',GLOB_MARK|GLOB_BRACE);
    foreach ($files as $file) {
      if (is_dir($file)) {
        self::rmdir_recursive($file, 1);
      } else {
        unlink($file);
      }
    }
    if ($delete_parent) {
      rmdir($directory);
    }
  }

Answer 5

Modified variant of @XzaR solution. It does remove empty folders, when all files are deleted from them and it throws exceptions instead of returning false on errors.

function recursivelyRemoveDirectory($source, $removeOnlyChildren = true)
{
    if (empty($source) || file_exists($source) === false) {
        throw new Exception("File does not exist: '$source'");
    }

    if (is_file($source) || is_link($source)) {
        if (false === unlink($source)) {
            throw new Exception("Cannot delete file '$source'");
        }
    }

    $files = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
        new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($source, RecursiveDirectoryIterator::SKIP_DOTS),
        RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST
    );

    foreach ($files as $fileInfo) {
        /** @var SplFileInfo $fileInfo */
        if ($fileInfo->isDir()) {
            if ($this->recursivelyRemoveDirectory($fileInfo->getRealPath()) === false) {
                throw new Exception("Failed to remove directory '{$fileInfo->getRealPath()}'");
            }
            if (false === rmdir($fileInfo->getRealPath())) {
                throw new Exception("Failed to remove empty directory '{$fileInfo->getRealPath()}'");
            }
        } else {
            if (unlink($fileInfo->getRealPath()) === false) {
                throw new Exception("Failed to remove file '{$fileInfo->getRealPath()}'");
            }
        }
    }

    if ($removeOnlyChildren === false) {
        if (false === rmdir($source)) {
            throw new Exception("Cannot remove directory '$source'");
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

There is another thread with more examples here: A recursive remove directory function for PHP?

If you are using Yii then you can leave it to the framework:

CFileHelper::removeDirectory($my_directory);