file_exists and dir

sfullman

I know I can use file_exists() effectively on a local network as well as dir to get a listing of files on a folder.

However, what about a remote URL? I realize that if there is an index.xxx or home.xxx page in the folder, that's what the server's going to feed me.

But if there isn't, oftentimes the server will feed me a list of available files in HTML format.

Is there any way in PHP to get an array of these available files if the remote folder allows it?

I suppose I could come up with some kind of preg parser but I don't want to re-invent the wheel.

Sam Fullman
Compass Point Media

ozzythaman

as a solution for your first problem;

use fsockopen, send headers

GET HEAD /dir/file.bla http/1.0
host www.blabla.com
enter
enter
and receive the header, then use the http header to check the response,

if it says HTTP 200 OK (or whatever, i cant, and dont need nor do i want to remember all the correct form of the stuff that is sent and received, look it up)
.. then the file exists...

for your second prob, i dont think there's a way of getting the filelist from http, that's, like, against the very foundation of http - dude.. if you don't know the filename, then you shouldn't need the file..

the_Igel

Of course if you're sure that a server returns you generated list of files (auto-generated directory index), then you can retrieve it via fopen() or fsockopen() or file(), and then parse it to get an array of files. But you should be sure, that you get directory index, and not just index.html, that happened to be in the directory. And you should know the markup of the file to be able to parse it.
In short, there's nothing hard to write a function that retrieves a file list from a known location, but it's next to impossible to make it work universally.