PHP File system

PHP has features to read, write, create & delete files on the remote. This provided predefined functions to perform these operations.

Let us take an example of a file system to understand this

<?php

$file = fopen ("ftp://ftp.domain.com/fakepath/file", "w");

if (!$file)
{
    echo "<p>Unable to open remote file for writing.\n";
    exit;
}

/* Write the data here. */
fwrite ($file, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n");
fclose ($file);

?>

Requirement

No external libraries are needed to build this extension.

Installation

There is no installation needed to use these functions; they are part of the PHP core.

Runtime Configuration

Resource Types

The file system uses streams as its resource type. Streams are documented in their own reference chapter.

Predefined constants

• SEEK_SET (integer)

• SEEK_CUR (integer)

• SEEK_END (integer)

• LOCK_SH (integer)

• LOCK_EX (integer)

• LOCK_UN (integer)

• LOCK_NB (integer)

• GLOB_BRACE (integer)

• GLOB_ONLYDIR (integer)

• GLOB_MARK (integer)

• GLOB_NOSORT (integer)

• GLOB_NOCHECK (integer)

• GLOB_NOESCAPE (integer)

• GLOB_AVAILABLE_FLAGS (integer)

• PATHINFO_DIRNAME (integer)

• PATHINFO_BASENAME (integer)

• PATHINFO_EXTENSION (integer)

• PATHINFO_FILENAME (integer) – Since PHP 5.2.0.

• FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH (integer) – Search for filename in include_path (since PHP 5).

• FILE_NO_DEFAULT_CONTEXT (integer)

• FILE_APPEND (integer) – Append content to the existing file.

• FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES (integer) – Strip EOL characters (since PHP 5).

• FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES (integer) – Skip empty lines (since PHP 5).

• FILE_BINARY (integer) – Binary mode (since PHP 5.2.7).

• FILE_TEXT (integer) – Text mode (since PHP 5.2.7).

• INI_SCANNER_NORMAL (integer) – Normal INI scanner mode (since PHP 5.3).

• INI_SCANNER_RAW (integer) – Raw INI scanner mode (since PHP 5.3).

• INI_SCANNER_TYPED (integer) – Typed INI scanner mode (since PHP 5.6.1).

• FNM_NOESCAPE (integer) – Disable backslash escaping.

• FNM_PATHNAME (integer) – Slash in a string only matches slash in the given pattern.

• FNM_PERIOD (integer) – The leading period in a string must be exactly matched by the period in the given pattern.

• FNM_CASEFOLD (integer) – Caseless match. Part of the GNU extension.

File system functions

• basename — Returns trailing name component of the path

• chgrp — Changes file-group

• chmod — Changes file mode

• chown — Changes file owner

• clearstatcache — Clears file status cache

• copy — Copies file

• delete — See unlink or unset

• dirname — Returns a parent directory's path

• disk_free_space — Returns available space on filesystem or disk partition

• disk_total_space — Returns the total size of a filesystem or disk partition

• diskfreespace — Alias of disk_free_space

• fclose — Closes an open file pointer

• feof — Tests for end-of-file on a file pointer

• fflush — Flushes the output to a file

• fgetc — Gets character from file pointer

• fgetcsv — Gets line from file pointer and parse for CSV fields

• fgets — Gets line from file pointer

• fgetss — Gets line from file pointer and strip HTML tags

• file_exists — Checks whether a file or directory exists

• file_get_contents — Reads entire file into a string

• file_put_contents — Write data to a file

• file — Reads entire file into an array

• fileatime — Gets last access time of file

• filectime — Gets inode change time of file

• filegroup — Gets file-group

• fileinode — Gets file inode

• filemtime — Gets file modification time

• fileowner — Gets file owner

• fileperms — Gets file permissions

• filesize — Gets file size

• filetype — Gets file type

• flock — Portable advisory file locking

• fnmatch — Match filename against a pattern

• fopen — Opens file or URL

• fpassthru — Output all remaining data on a file pointer

• fputcsv — Format line as CSV and write to file pointer

• fputs — Alias of fwrite

• fread — Binary-safe file read

• fscanf — Parses input from a file according to a format

• fseek — Seeks on a file pointer

• fstat — Gets information about a file using an open file pointer

• ftell — Returns the current position of the file read/write pointer

• ftruncate — Truncates a file to a given length

• fwrite — Binary-safe file write

• glob — Find pathnames matching a pattern

• is_dir — Tells whether the filename is a directory

• is_executable — Tells whether the filename is executable

• is_file — Tells whether the filename is a regular file

• is_link — Tells whether the filename is a symbolic link

• is_readable — Tells whether a file exists and is readable

• is_uploaded_file — Tells whether the file was uploaded via HTTP POST

• is_writable — Tells whether the filename is writable

• is_writeable — Alias of is_writable

• lchgrp — Changes group ownership of symlink

• lchown — Changes user ownership of symlink

• link — Create a hard link

• linkinfo — Gets information about a link

• lstat — Gives information about a file or symbolic link

• mkdir — Makes a directory

• move_uploaded_file — Moves an uploaded file to a new location

• parse_ini_file — Parse a configuration file

• parse_ini_string — Parse a configuration string

• pathinfo — Returns information about a file path

• pclose — Closes process file pointer

• popen — Opens process file pointer

• readfile — Outputs a file

• readlink — Returns the target of a symbolic link

• realpath_cache_get — Get real path cache entries

• realpath_cache_size — Get real path cache size

• realpath — Returns canonicalized absolute pathname

• rename — Renames a file or directory

• rewind — Rewind the position of a file pointer

• rmdir — Removes the directory

• set_file_buffer — Alias of stream_set_write_buffer

• stat — Gives information about a file

• symlink — Creates a symbolic link

• tempnam — Create a file with the unique file name

• tmpfile — Creates a temporary file

• touch — Sets access and modification time of file

• umask — Changes the current umask

• unlink — Deletes a file