Check if a Directory is empty or not

fragger

Hi all,

I try to walk through a directory and check if it's empty or not.
I'm on it since hours but it don't work. Can anyone help me ?
The code's below 🙂

Thanx in advance

Olli

$handle = opendir($destdir);
while ($file = readdir($handle))
{
for ($i=0; $i < count($file); $i++ )
{
if ($i <= 0)
{
print "emptyyy";
}
else
{
print "Not empty";
}

}
}

Sxooter

check what you're getting back on the empty dir. I'll bet you're getting back "." and "..".

batman

Why don't you try this:

$destdir = "directory here";
$handle = opendir($destdir);
if(empty($handle))
{
echo "Empty!!";
}
else
{
echo "Not Empty!!";
}

Never had a chance to test this so Im not sure if "empty" will work with "opendir". But good luck anywho....

Sxooter

Sorry batman, but that won't work. empty() tests a var to see if it is set or not.

the handle will be set, so that won't work.

My guess is that he's getting .. and . as file names, so the test should probably be something like:

$c = 0;
while ($file = readdir($handle)&& $c<3) {
  $c++;
}

if ($c>2){
  print "Not empty";
} else {
  print "Empty";
}

batman

That's right. Sorry 'bout that, its been a long time since i've messed with PHP.

fragger

Thanx guys that works 🙂🙂

batman

Which one worked? Im assuming that Sxooters last example worked for you? I was gonna tell you to look at scandir(); but as long as it works and you are happy.

Sxooter

scandir makes it even easier, but it may be slower, since it will return a complete list. i.e. if you've got 10,000 files in a directory, my method will be much faster than scandir, which return all 10,000, while mine just returns the first 3.

csn

Actually, empty() will also return TRUE if a var is set, but is a zero value (or empty string too I think).

if (!$handle) {
  ..
}

if (empty($handle)) {
  ..
}

isset() will return TRUE if a var has been declared/set, even if it's value is zero/empty.

Sxooter

True, I took the header from my older PHP doc files and just read that, for empty it says:

empty -- Determine whether a variable is set

I hope that's been fixed by now.