Managing the number of files in a directory

[eludlow]

I've created a cron job that automatically backs up all my mysql DBs late at night.

Obviously, I don't want too many files in there at once.

Can someone outline a script that will check the number of files in the dir, and when it reaches a certain number, delete the last one.

Many thanks in advance,
Ed Ludlow

[rehfeld]

$files = array();

$dh = opendir($dir);


while (false !== ($file = readdir($dh))) {
    if ($file == '.' || $file == '..') continue;
    $path = "$dir/$file";
    $key = filemtime($path);
    $files[$key] = $path;
}

sort the $files array by the keys, so the oldest files come first

now count() how many $files, decide how many need to be deleted, and loop that many times deleting the oldest files.