php glob - scan in subfolders for a file - php

Question

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 "$search";
}
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.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

As a full solution for your problem (this was also my problem):
<?php
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.