How to check if files exists on a folder? [duplicate] - php

Question

How can I check if a specific file exists on a remote server using PHP via FTP connections?

Answer 1

Some suggestions:
Use ftp_size, which returns -1 if it doesn't exist: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ftp-size.php
Use fopen, e.g. fopen("ftp://user:password#example.com/somefile.txt", "r")
Use ftp_nlist, check to see if the filename you want is in the list: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ftp-nlist.php

Answer 2

I used this, a bit easier:
// the server you wish to connect to - you can also use the server ip ex. 107.23.17.20
$ftp_server = "ftp.example.com";
// set up a connection to the server we chose or die and show an error
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server) or die("Couldn't connect to $ftp_server");
ftp_login($conn_id,"ftpserver_username","ftpserver_password");
// check if a file exist
$path = "/SERVER_FOLDER/"; //the path where the file is located
$file = "file.html"; //the file you are looking for
$check_file_exist = $path.$file; //combine string for easy use
$contents_on_server = ftp_nlist($conn_id, $path); //Returns an array of filenames from the specified directory on success or FALSE on error.
// Test if file is in the ftp_nlist array
if (in_array($check_file_exist, $contents_on_server))
{
echo "<br>";
echo "I found ".$check_file_exist." in directory : ".$path;
}
else
{
echo "<br>";
echo $check_file_exist." not found in directory : ".$path;
};
// output $contents_on_server, shows all the files it found, helps for debugging, you can use print_r() as well
var_dump($contents_on_server);
// remember to always close your ftp connection
ftp_close($conn_id);
Functions used: (thanks to middaparka)
Login using ftp_connect
Get the remote file list via ftp_nlist
Use in_array to see if the file was present in the array

Answer 3

Just check the size of a file. If the size is -1, it doesn't exist, so:
$file_size = ftp_size($ftp_connection, "example.txt");
if ($file_size != -1) {
echo "File exists";
} else {
echo "File does not exist";
}
If the size is 0, the file does exist, it's just 0 bytes.
Source

Answer 4

A general solution would be to:
Login using ftp_connect
Navigate to the relevant directory via ftp_chdir
Get the remote file list via ftp_nlist or ftp_rawlist
Use in_array to see if the file was present in the array returned by ftp_rawlist
That said, you could potentially simply use file_exists if you have the relevant URL wrappers available. (See the PHP FTP and FTPS protocols and wrappers manual page for more information.)

Answer 5

This is an optimization of #JohanPretorius solution, and an answer for comments about "slow and inefficient for large dirs" of #Andrew and other: if you need more than one "file_exist checking", this function is a optimal solution.
ftp_file_exists() caching last folder
function ftp_file_exists(
$file, // the file that you looking for
$path = "SERVER_FOLDER", // the remote folder where it is
$ftp_server = "ftp.example.com", //Server to connect to
$ftp_user = "ftpserver_username", //Server username
$ftp_pwd = "ftpserver_password", //Server password
$useCache = 1 // ALERT: do not $useCache when changing the remote folder $path.
){
static $cache_ftp_nlist = array();
static $cache_signature = '';
$new_signature = "$ftp_server/$path";
if(!$useCache || $new_signature!=$cache_signature)
{
$useCache = 0;
//$new_signature = $cache_signature;
$cache_signature = $new_signature;
// setup the connection
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server) or die("Error connecting $ftp_server");
$ftp_login = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user, $ftp_pwd);
$cache_ftp_nlist = ftp_nlist($conn_id, $path);
if ($cache_ftp_nlist===FALSE)die("erro no ftp_nlist");
}
//$check_file_exist = "$path/$file";
$check_file_exist = "$file";
if(in_array($check_file_exist, $cache_ftp_nlist))
{
echo "Found: ".$check_file_exist." in folder: ".$path;
}
else
{
echo "Not Found: ".$check_file_exist." in folder: ".$path;
};
// use for debuging: var_dump($cache_ftp_nlist);
if(!$useCache) ftp_close($conn_id);
} //function end
//Output messages
echo ftp_file_exists("file1-to-find.ext"); // do FTP
echo ftp_file_exists("file2-to-find.ext"); // using cache
echo ftp_file_exists("file3-to-find.ext"); // using cache
echo ftp_file_exists("file-to-find.ext","OTHER_FOLDER"); // do FTP

Answer 6

You can use ftp_nlist to list all the files on the remote server. Then you should search into the result array to check if the file what you was looking for exists.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.ftp-nlist.php

Answer 7

The code has been written by: #Drmzindec should be change a little:
if (in_array($check_file_exist, $contents_on_server))
to
if (in_array($file, $contents_on_server))