[RESOLVED] deleteing files that are outside of the public_html directory

[Desbrina]

When i run cron scripts, i get files that appear in the / directory, which is before my public html directory, and because the scripts run very oftern, by the time i get round to deleting them, theres several thousand (cleared out 6000+ today)

I know that i can delete them using unlink but i've ran into a problem

I can't access files in / from within public_html, so i've got no way of deleting them. Is there a way of doing it.

The other problem is the file name is never the same every time. Its the name of the file (ie. process.php) followed by some numbers (ie. process.php/process.php.1/process.php.2) and the numbers dont always increase by 1, at one point it goes up to 1000

[zabmilenko]

What is preventing the access? Is there an open_basedir restriction in place? Is it web-server permissions?

[Desbrina]

my host says they have no use for open_basedir

We run php as a CGI for security.

This means that PHP is executed under your cPanel username. This way we can track exactly what is done via your PHP scripts and what files they create/modify/own.

We have no use for open_basedir

[zabmilenko]

So permissions then...

Use the following functions to test the file you are trying to delete:

is_readable()
is_writable()

Something like this:

echo is_readable($file) ? 'readable, ' : 'not readable, ';
echo is_writable($file) ? 'writable, ' : 'not writable, ';

What output do you get?

[Desbrina]

i got readable, writable
i've also managed to get it to delete but my only problem now is getting it to delete those that match the start of the file name
process.php
auctionwon.php

[bradgrafelman]

Use [man]glob/man with a wildcard (e.g. 'process.php*') and loop through the array using [man]unlink/man as you go.

[Desbrina]

thanks, got it all working