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I have a server with a lot of files inside various folders, sub-folders, and sub-sub-folders.

I'm trying to make a search.php page that would be used to search the whole server for a specific file. If the file is found, then return the location path to display a download link.

Here's what i have so far:

$root = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']; $search = "test.zip"; $found_files = glob("$root/*/test.zip"); $downloadlink = str_replace("$root/", "", $found_files[0]); if (!empty($downloadlink)) { echo "<a href=\"http://www.example.com/$downloadlink\">$search</a>"; }

The script is working perfectly if the file is inside the root of my domain name... Now i'm trying to find a way to make it also scan sub-folders and sub-sub-folders but i'm stuck here.

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  • stackoverflow.com/questions/8870731/… Commented Jun 18, 2013 at 4:48
  • You mind have better luck using the file_exists() function. php.net/manual/en/function.file-exists.php (or a mix of). Commented Jun 18, 2013 at 4:58
  • doesn't tells me how to scan all sub-folders and sub-sobfolders for the file... Commented Jun 18, 2013 at 5:04
  • True. Have you had a look at the link messi fan put up? Seems promising. I'm dabbling with it now, and it's showing me all files in starting folder and sub-folders, but not working the way you want it to. Plus, I've got both eyes in the same socket right; needing some sleep, very soon. Commented Jun 18, 2013 at 5:13

4 Answers 4

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96

There are 2 ways.

Use glob to do recursive search:

<?php // Does not support flag GLOB_BRACE function rglob($pattern, $flags = 0) { $files = glob($pattern, $flags); foreach (glob(dirname($pattern).'/*', GLOB_ONLYDIR|GLOB_NOSORT) as $dir) { $files = array_merge( [], ...[$files, rglob($dir . "/" . basename($pattern), $flags)] ); } return $files; } // usage: to find the test.zip file recursively $result = rglob($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/test.zip'); var_dump($result); // to find the all files that names ends with test.zip $result = rglob($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/*test.zip'); ?>

Use RecursiveDirectoryIterator

<?php // $regPattern should be using regular expression function rsearch($folder, $regPattern) { $dir = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder); $ite = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($dir); $files = new RegexIterator($ite, $regPattern, RegexIterator::GET_MATCH); $fileList = array(); foreach($files as $file) { $fileList = array_merge($fileList, $file); } return $fileList; } // usage: to find the test.zip file recursively $result = rsearch($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], '/.*\/test\.zip/')); var_dump($result); ?>

RecursiveDirectoryIterator comes with PHP5 while glob is from PHP4. Both can do the job, it's up to you.

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17 Comments

ok but how can i use it to search for a specific file within folders/subfolders/subsubfolders and return the file's path ?
rsearch: var_dump(rsearch('/folder/.../', '/.*zip/')); rglob: var_dump(rglob('/folder/*/test.zip')); it returns an array of matched files.
I did some anecdotal tests on a deep directory structure and the rsearch function was an order of magnitude faster...
@JasonRDalton, retested, with PHP 7.1 ("anecdotally", too :) ), on a 60MB project tree (with two mid-size git worktrees and lots of other small files etc.), and got the exact opposite. Had a priming run for both right before the measurement, and I pretty consistently got numbers like: rglob: 0.02864, rsearch: 0.12413. Which is a lot more plausible, actually, than the other way around, I'd say.
I suggest you edit your answer to include rsearch($root, '/.*\/test.zip/')); to save newbies a lot of wasted time scanning through comments that are not visible by default. Apart from that, this is a nice answer.
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48

I want to provide another simple alternative for cases where you can predict a max depth. You can use a pattern with braces listing all possible subfolder depths.

This example allows 0-3 arbitrary subfolders:

glob("$root/{,*/,*/*/,*/*/*/}test_*.zip", GLOB_BRACE);

Of course the braced pattern could be procedurally generated.

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3 Comments

Just be aware that GLOB_BRACE isn't available on all platforms. I only discovered that when my code failed in an automated pipeline.
Or for multiple file types(for example .pdf,.mp4 and .mp3): glob("$root/{.pdf,*/.pdf,/*/.pdf,/*/*/.pdf,.mp4,*/.mp4,/*/.mp4,/*/*/.mp4,.mp3,*/.mp3,/*/.mp3,/*/*/.mp3}", GLOB_BRACE)
@HosseinNedaee Multiple types would be expressed with a brace pattern as well: "$root/{,*/,*/*/,*/*/*/}test_*.{zip,gz,tgz}"
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This returns fullpath to the file

function rsearch($folder, $pattern) { $iti = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder); foreach(new RecursiveIteratorIterator($iti) as $file){ if(strpos($file , $pattern) !== false){ return $file; } } return false; }

call the function:

$filepath = rsearch('/home/directory/thisdir/', "/findthisfile.jpg");

And this is returns like:

/home/directory/thisdir/subdir/findthisfile.jpg

You can improve this function to find several files like all jpeg file:

function rsearch($folder, $pattern_array) { $return = array(); $iti = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder); foreach(new RecursiveIteratorIterator($iti) as $file){ if (in_array(strtolower(array_pop(explode('.', $file))), $pattern_array)){ $return[] = $file; } } return $return; }

This can call as: 

$filepaths = rsearch('/home/directory/thisdir/', array('jpeg', 'jpg') );

Ref: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1860417/219112

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3 Comments

Probably should use $file->getExtension () rather than array_pop(explode('.', $file)) to avoid "PHP Notice: Only variables should be passed by reference in ...".
@Sadee Thanks for the function it's working well for my project. The only thing i would add is a die in case the folder path doesn't exist so it don't bother moving forward.-
You may want use yield instead of build a complete a $return array. This will produce a generator and improve performances a lot.
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As a full solution for your problem (this was also my problem):

function rsearch($folder, $pattern) { $dir = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder); $ite = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($dir); $files = new RegexIterator($ite, $pattern, RegexIterator::MATCH); foreach($files as $file) { yield $file->getPathName(); } }

Will get you the full path of the items that you wish to find.

Edit: Thanks to Rousseau Alexandre for pointing out , $pattern must be regular expression.

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3 Comments

The pattern must be a regular expression
Can you give a brief example of how to call it and iterate through the results?
Example pattern for getting all files with .html extension: $pattern = '#^.*\.html$#'

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