how to empty a directory?

[bav]

rmdir() doesn't work till the directory is empty. I've a directory called "Books" which has 3 other sub-directories: Images, thumbnails and text. And each of the sub-directory can either be empty or it can have several files.

My main goal is to delete main directory, "Books" . How can I do that??

I'd really appreciate your help.
thanx!!

[xentrix]

You must remove all files from the subdirectories (function unlink), then delete subdirectories and at last the main directory. There´s no other way how to do it, I think.

[bav]

Could anybody see what's wrong with this code: I'm trying to delete a directory, "books" which has 3 subdirectories. Each subdirectory may or maynot contain any files.
Thankyou.

$nid = "3";
if($submit) {
	$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id='$nid'");
	$number = mysql_num_rows($result);
	if($number) {
		$fld = mysql_result($result, $i, "folder");
	}
  // subdirectories
  $fld_array = array("images","thb","text");
  $count_fld = count($fld_array);

 // looping through each subdirectory
  for($j=0; $j<$count_fld; $j++) {
  	  $del_path = "../../../../share/docs/". $fld . "/". $fld_array[$j];
  	  if($dir = @opendir(".")) {
	  	  while($ofile = readdir($dir)) {
  		  	  chdir($del_path);
  	  		  	  if($ofile != "") {
  		  	  	  $unl = @unlink($ofile);
	  	  	  }

  	  } //end of while 
  	closedir($del_path);	  

}
  $del_dir = $fld_array[$j];
   $rem = rmdir($del_dir);  //removing sub directory
}
}

[xentrix]

I´ve found this function and it works ;-) Maybe it will help you.

function delete($file) {
  if (file_exists($file)) {
    chmod($file,0777);
    if (is_dir($file)) {
      $handle = opendir($file);
      while($filename = readdir($handle)) {
        if ($filename != "." && $filename != "..") {
          delete($file."/".$filename);
        }
      }
      closedir($handle);
      rmdir($file);
    }
    else {
      unlink($file);
    }
  }
}




$nid = "3";
if($submit) {
    $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id='$nid'");
    $number = mysql_num_rows($result);
    if($number) {
        $fld = mysql_result($result, $i, "folder");
    }


//sub directories
$fld_array = array("images","text","thb");
$count_fld = count($fld_array);


for($j=0; $j<$count_fld; $j++) {
  $mydir = $fld . "/". $fld_array[$j];
  delete ($mydir);
}

I tried your script and made some changes but I haven´t found the bug why it isn´t work so I tried to find some solving on the net and I found the function above ;-)

I think the sub directories in $fld_array could be in an alphabetical order.

[bav]

thanx a lot xentrix!! It works like a charm!!!