glob function recursive question

[jackmn1]

I need to create a function that lists subfolders of a given folder, that contain at least one .txt file.

I found the following function, which displays a list of file that match a pattern in a directory tree:

function find($dir, $pattern){
$dir = escapeshellcmd($dir);  
$files = glob("$dir/$pattern");  
foreach (glob("$dir/{.[^.]*,*}", GLOB_BRACE|GLOB_ONLYDIR) as $sub_dir) //look in subdirectories
{
	$arr   = find($sub_dir, $pattern); //recursive call
	$files = array_merge($files, $arr); // merge array with files from subdirectory  
}  
return $files;  
}  
$txtFiles=find("project/sys","*.txt");
foreach ($txtFiles as $txtFile)
{
echo '<h2>'.$txtFile.'</h2>'; //display all text files
}

 

My question is, how do I change the function to return only folders that contain at least one text file. But, the functions should look inside child folders of "project/sys" and list a child folder only once if that folder or any of its child folders contain at least one text file.

 

I'll give an example of the output I'm looking for:

Folder list

project/sys/diagram

project/sys/bin

project/sys/scripts

project/sys/styles

project/sys/meta

 

The above folders may not contain a text file directly, but their children folders do. However, I'm not interested in their children folder and I want to list the above level folder only once for each folder.

 

Thanks in advance

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Quick play and something like this should do it

 

<?php

function find($dir, $pattern)
{
$dir = escapeshellcmd($dir);  
$files = glob("$dir/$pattern");  
$retvar = false;
if ($files)
{
	$retvar = true;
}
else
{
	foreach (glob("$dir/{.[^.]*,*}", GLOB_BRACE|GLOB_ONLYDIR) as $sub_dir) //look in subdirectories
	{
		$retvar = $retvar || find($sub_dir, $pattern); //recursive call
		if ($retvar) break;
	}  
}
return $retvar;
}  

if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/diagram","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/diagram contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/bin","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/bin contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/scripts","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/scripts contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/styles","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/styles contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/meta","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/meta contains a text file<br />" ;

?>

 

Call it with the base directory name and it will search through sub directories until it finds a text file at which point it will break out of the loop and come back with true.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

Thanks, kickstart, that helps a lot. But the folders I listed are just an example and there are in fact many many more subfolders to project/sys.

Therefore I need to somehow find the subfolder list (only 1st level children), and loop through that list instead of the:

if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/diagram","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/diagram contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/bin","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/bin contains a text file<br />" ;
if ($txtFiles=find("project/sys/scripts","*.txt")) echo "Folder project/sys/scripts contains a text file<br />" ;

Can you show me how to do this?

[kickstart]

Hi

 

This will find all the subdirectories of the current directory that contains a text file

 

<?php

function find($dir, $pattern)
{
$dir = escapeshellcmd($dir);  
$files = glob("$dir/$pattern");  
$retvar = false;
if ($files)
{
	$retvar = true;
}
else
{
	foreach (glob("$dir/{.[^.]*,*}", GLOB_BRACE|GLOB_ONLYDIR) as $sub_dir) //look in subdirectories
	{
		$retvar = $retvar || find($sub_dir, $pattern); //recursive call
		if ($retvar) break;
	}  
}
return $retvar;
}  

$dir = "./"; 
// Open a current directory and proceed to read its contents 
if (is_dir($dir)) {   
if ($dh = opendir($dir)) {     
	while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false) 
	{
		if ($file != '.' && $file != '..' && is_dir($file))
		{
			if ($txtFiles=find($dir.$file,"*.txt")) echo "Folder $dir$file contains a text file<br />" ;
		} 
	}
	closedir($dh);   
} 
} 

?>

 

Set $dir to another directory if you do not want to use it on the current directory.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

Great! but the function doesn't output anything, and after debugging, I found out that for some reason it doesn't meet the condition "is_dir". Do you have any idea what might be the reason?

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Not sure.

 

Tried it on my PC and it worked OK

 

is_dir is a standard php function to determine if something is a directory.

 

Take out the checks for ".." and "." and double check (including those directories will give some spurious extra lines).

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

I did remove the ".." and "." conditions, but is_dir still doesn't work :-(

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Looking around there seem to be a fair few people having problems with is_dir depending on file systems, versions of php, etc.

 

One cheat might be to check instead that something isn't a file:-

 

if ($file != '.' && $file != '..' && !is_file($file))

 

That works on my machine (but then so did is_dir). Give it a try.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

This seems to work a lot better, however, I now noticed that it works only if I leave the $dir variable as $dir = "./", but it doesn't work with $dir = "./project/sys". This is strange, maybe I'm entering the path incorrectly (I'm still a newbie in PHP..).

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Is projects a sub directory of the directory the script is in? If so them just put an extra / after sys.

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

the script is located in the folder project/extra/scripts/index.php. So what should $dir value be?

[kickstart]

Hi

 

It needs to point at the directory you want to search.

 

Ie, assuming project/sys/ is in the root directory then you would need $dir = '/project/sys';

 

Could also be relative,  $dir = '../../../';

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

It works! it wasn't the path eventually, I just realized that there was another is_dir I needed to change to !is_file now.

Thanks a lot, kickstart. I appreciate your help.

[kickstart]

Hi

 

Glad you got it working.

 

If you want to see a script take ages, run it against the root directory .

 

All the best

 

Keith

[jackmn1]

:-)