Unlink() not working - php

Question

I am trying to delete a file from the Server.
The files of my application is in a folder name "/public_html/app/";
All the images associated with the application is located in the following path: "/public_html/app/images/tryimg/"
The file in which I am writing the below code spec is in "/public_html/app/".
Here is my code snipet:
<?php
$m_img = "try.jpg"
$m_img_path = "images/tryimg".$m_img;
if (file_exists($m_img_path))
{
unlink($m_img_path);
}
// See if it exists again to be sure it was removed
if (file_exists($m_img))
{
echo "Problem deleting " . $m_img_path;
}
else
{
echo "Successfully deleted " . $m_img_path;
}
?>
When the above script is executed the message "Successfully deleted try.jpg" is displayed.
But when I navigate to the folder, the file is not deleted.
Apache: 2.2.17
PHP version: 5.3.5
What am I doing wrong?
Do I have to give a relative or absolute path to the image?

Answer 1

you're missing a directory separator:
$m_img = "try.jpg"
$m_img_path = "images/tryimg".$m_img;
// You end up with this..
$m_img_path == 'images/tryimgtry.jpg';
You need to add a slash:
$m_img_path = "images/tryimg". DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $m_img;
You also need to change your second file_exists call as you're using the image name and not the path:
if (file_exists($m_img_path))

Answer 2

You check the wrong path:
if (file_exists($m_img))
while you (tried to) delete(d) $m_img_path, so replace your check with
if (file_exists($m_img_path))
unlink() returns a boolean value to indicate whether the deletion succeeded or not, so it is easier/better to use this value:
if (file_exists($m_img_path))
{
if(unlink($m_img_path))
{
echo "Successfully deleted " . $m_img_path;
}
else
{
echo "Problem deleting " . $m_img_path;
}
}
Furthermore, the current directory is at the location where the script is executed, so you need to keep this in mind when using a relative path. In most situations it is probably better/easier to use absolute paths if possible.
If you need paths to a lot of files on your server, you might want to put the absolute path in a variable and use that, so it is easy to change the absolute location if your server configuration changes.