readdir() includes an empty folder - php

Question

I have this part of script that echos the folders in "albums" folder and arrange them by the alphabet, but for some reason it also includes an empty folder.
$directory = opendir("albums/");
$items = array();
while($items[] = readdir($directory))
sort($items);
closedir($directory);
foreach ($items as $item)
{
if(($item != ".") && ($item != "..")){
$files[] = $item;
}
}
What should I do? I think the if(($item != ".") && ($item != "..")) is part of my problem but I can't figure how to handle it.

Answer 1

The problem is with this line:
while($items[] = readdir($directory))
readdir returns false if no entries are left. That is why you have an extra item in $items
EDIT
while($item = readdir($directory))
{
$items[] = $item;
sort($items);
}

Answer 2

. is the current directory and .. is the parent directory. It's normal that readdir() returns these.
BTW you could simplify your code by using the glob() function:
$files = glob("albums/*");
// that's all
glob("albums/*") will return all entries in the albums directory, sorted alphabetically, and without the dot and dotdot entries.

Answer 3

Try this, as it's in sorted order, just array_shift() twice will do this work. But personally I think it's a kinda hacking...

Answer 4

<?php
$files = array();
foreach (glob('album/*') as $file) {
if (!is_dir($file)) {
$files[] = basename($file);
}
}
sort($files);
You can modify 'album/*' to suit your needs (ex. 'album/*.mp3'). Note that this method is not recursive, so if you need to process subdirectories within the album/ directory, you'll want to modify the code to account for this.