Indexer trying to alphabetize, please help

[AceForSale]

I found a simple index code but i need help getting it to alphabetize

<?
$path = "../flashfiles/"; // Open the folder
$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open $path"); // Loop through the files
while ($file = readdir($dir_handle))
{
if($file == "." || $file == ".." || $file == "index.php" )

continue;
echo "<a href=\"$file\">$file</a><br />"; } // Close
closedir($dir_handle);
?>

Does anyone know what i need to do?

Thanx,
Dave

[LordShryku]

Instead of echoing them, put them into an array then [man]sort[/man] them.

[TheDefender]

Not trying to step up on you LordShryku, just lending a hand here... Ace, to give you an example of what LS is saying, you should do something like this:

<? 
$path = "../flashfiles/"; // Open the folder 
$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open $path"); // Loop through the files 
$filearray = array();
while ($file = readdir($dir_handle)) 
{ 
if($file == "." || $file == ".." || $file == "index.php" ) 
continue; 
$filearray[] = $file;
} // Close 
closedir($dir_handle); 

sort($filearray);
FOREACH($filearray as $file){
echo "<a href=\"$file\">$file</a><br />"; 
}
?> 

[LordShryku]

You wanna hand him all of the code, go ahead....

[AceForSale]

Thank you both very much, The code listed works, I was a little puzzled on how the code works but i really appriciate you taking the time to edit it to work properly for me, i've been messing around with it for atleast 24 hours. But i am a newbie and i admit it so i'm trying to learn it,

The only part that threw me off is, on the original code, the echo was before the closing statement so i figured it was pulling the names before hand but i noticed the echo at the end this time,

If you guys have any extra time can you give me a small understanding of how a few of these lines work of what exactly do they do,

$filearray[] = $file; <-- i'm guessing its turning whatever file name text it found in the array and saying its called $file to be called at a later time.

and

sort($filearray); <-- assuming it sorts the list but what is the line below for, whats its purpose:

FOREACH($filearray as $file){

[TheDefender]

Originally posted by LordShryku
You wanna hand him all of the code, go ahead....

🙂 Hey, just trying to save some time... I don't want to be accused of trying to pad my post count... LOL. (No offense Ace, but I could see where this was heading without giving out the code straight up...)

Now, onto your question Ace, I am going to repost the code, commented this time, so you can see what's going on...

<?  

$path = "../flashfiles/"; // Open the folder 
$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open $path"); // Loop through the files 

// Creates an empty array we are going to fill with file names later.  It's this array that we use later to sort the filenames and output them alphabetically.
$filearray = array(); 

// Loop through each file name.
while ($file = readdir($dir_handle))  

{  

if($file == "." || $file == ".." || $file == "index.php" )  

continue;  

// While looping through each file name, we are putting them into the array we defined earlier, one by one.  This line is actually addeacg each file name to the $filearray array.
$filearray[] = $file; 

} // Close 
closedir($dir_handle);  

// OK, so now we have our filled array, so we need to sort it and output the names, so that's where this bit comes in.  Obviouisly, we sort it first.
sort($filearray);

// This bit of code wasn't there before, but I am adding it so you can see what the array looks like now, after we filled it and sorted it...
print_r($filearray);

// Then we run through each newly sorted file name, and output it. (It's what you were doing in your earlier code, only we sorted the names first.)   This basically states that for each filename in the $filearray, we are going to reference it with the $file variable.  We will then use that variable to echo our links.
FOREACH($filearray as $file){ 
echo "<a href=\"$file\">$file</a><br />";  

} 
?>  

I hope this explains it well enough for you, and doesn't confuse you more.

[AceForSale]

Thank you for all your help TheDefender.

I had another post i was going put in a thread earlier related to this problem but you may be able to help me with it in this one, I'll try. If not i still appriciate all your help.

The code we've been doing is so i can pull any file out of a directory to show on a webpage,

The second i'm trying to do is, I want to be able to pull the information out of a .txt file and have it put the info onto the webpage using echo i'm guess, that way if i need to update a page, i can just update the text file

Is this process hard to do?

[rachel2004]

Originally posted by AceForSale
The second i'm trying to do is, I want to be able to pull the information out of a .txt file and have it put the info onto the webpage using echo i'm guess, that way if i need to update a page, i can just update the text file

Is this process hard to do?

I won't question why you're doing it this way instead of using a database since business reasons sometimes dictate processes. Almost all of the PHP file related functions begin with the letter "f" or contain the word "file" in the function name. The PHP manual could answer your question and your subsequent questions regarding opening, reading, writing, closing a file.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.filesystem.php

[AceForSale]

the reason behind it is, the code originally will pull .swf files and display them, so if i get new flash files, i will put them into the directory and it will auto pull them out,

But this is like a links page for flash files, but sometimes i get always get a flash file through the temp internet files, So i wanted to post the actual link where to find it on anothers page, so after the code above i wanted to make this text file link,

This way, i can just put a url in the text file and it will display it on the page, therefor saving the time of changing the page each time i have a new link to add.

[AceForSale]

Here is my attempt, it fails, can someone help

<?
$directory = "../testing/";
$linkfile = "testing.inc"; //this is my txt file with the links
$links = file($directory.$linkfile);
$nu = fopen ($directory.$linkfile);
fputs($nu,$links);

while ($file = fopen ($directory.$linkfile))

$filearray[] = $file;

closedir($dir_handle);

FOREACH($filearray as $file){

echo "$file";

echo "<br>";

}

?>

I pretty much get a blank page, i know its probably sloppy but i'm a newbie and i'm trying my best. Any suggestions?

[TheDefender]

Change to:

$filearray = array();
while ($file = fopen ($directory.$linkfile)) {
$filearray[] = $file;
}
closedir($dir_handle); 

// Put this in to debug and make sure your array has something in it.
print_r($filearray);

[AceForSale]

Ok, i have the following

<?
$directory = "../testing/";
$linkfile = "testing.inc"; //this is my txt file with the links

$links = file($directory.$linkfile);
$nu = fopen ($directory.$linkfile);
fputs($nu,$links);

$filearray = array();
while ($file = fopen ($directory.$linkfile)) {
$filearray[] = $file;
}
closedir($dir_handle);

print_r($filearray);

FOREACH($filearray as $file){

echo "$file";

echo "<br>";

}

?>

When i post it, i get a blank page that says Array()
Any suggestions?

[TheDefender]

It means your array is empty.

You need to go back to where you define the directory and file, and make sure it is opening the file right, and go from there...

[AceForSale]

I cant seem to get this array fixed,
🙁