glob
(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
glob — Find pathnames matching a pattern
Description
The behavior on Unix systems and macOS is determined by the system's
implementation of glob(). On Windows, an implementation that conforms
to the POSIX 1003.2 definition for glob() is used, and it includes
an extension to handle the [!...] convention for
negating a range.
Parameters
pattern-
The pattern. No tilde expansion or parameter substitution is done.
Special characters:
-
* - Matches zero or more characters.
-
? - Matches exactly one character (any character).
-
[...] - Matches one character from a group of
characters. If the first character is !,
matches any character not in the group.
-
{a,b,c} - Matches one string from a group of
strings delimited by a comma when the GLOB_BRACE
flag is used.
-
\ - Escapes the following character,
except when the GLOB_NOESCAPE flag is used.
flags-
Any of the GLOB_* constants.
Return Values
Returns an array containing the matched files/directories, an empty array
if no file matched or false on error.
Unless GLOB_NOSORT was used, the names will
be sorted alphanumerically.
Examples
Example #1
Convenient way how glob() can replace
opendir() and friends.
<?php
foreach (glob("*.txt") as $filename) {
echo "$filename size " . filesize($filename) . "\n";
}
?>
The above example will output
something similar to:
funclist.txt size 44686
funcsummary.txt size 267625
quickref.txt size 137820
Example #2
Example with a more complex pattern
<?php
foreach (glob("path/*/*.{txt,md}", \GLOB_BRACE) as $filename) {
echo "$filename\n";
}
?>
The above example will output
something similar to:
path/docs/mailinglist-rules.md
path/docs/README.md
path/docs/release-process.md
path/pear/install-pear.txt
path/Zend/README.md
Notes
Note:
This function will not work on
remote files as the file to
be examined must be accessible via the server's filesystem.
Note:
This function isn't available on some systems (e.g. old Sun OS).
fwrite
Filesystem Functions