[RESOLVED] regex to find files not working

kristo5747

Greetings!

I am building a simple form based app to search for files on a server. I want the user to enter a directory path (e.g. "/home/joe/docs") and the suffix of the file to look for (e.g "pdf").

This is the code for the webform:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
    <head>
        <title></title>
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
    </head>
    <body>
        <form action="search.php" method="post">
            directory path to search: <input type="text" name="dir" />
            file suffix to search (eg: "doc"): <input type="text" name="filesearch" />
            <input type="submit" />
        </form>
    </body>
</html>

This is the code for the search:

<?php

$mydir = $_POST["dir"];
$mysearch = $_POST["filesearch"];

if ($dir = opendir($mydir)) {
    //List files in directory
    while (($file = readdir($dir)) !== false)
    //Ignores OS stuff.
    if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
        if (preg_match('/[a-zA-Z0-9_]\.'.$mysearch. '$/', $file)) {
            echo "filename: " . $file . "<br />";
        }
    }
    closedir($dir);
}?>

It does not work, no errors nothing. I am sure the error is in the regex expression but what I don't understand is that this regex expression works fine when using it from the BASH shell.

What am I doing wrong? Can someone please help?

Thanks!

Al.

dagon

take a look at glob, i think it will be much easier solution

kristo5747

dagon;10914504 wrote:
take a look at glob, i think it will be much easier solution

Mmm....I followed your advice and things got even stranger.

I created a script and ran it from the command line:

<?php
$internalpath = "/home/albert/work/";

$fileList = glob($internalpath . "{*.pdf}", GLOB_BRACE);

foreach($fileList as $filename) {
        echo $filename."\n";
}
?>

This worked like a charm! As I excepted, it retrieved the names of five PDF files located in "/home/albert/work/";

When I use the same approach in a form "index.php" ...

<form action="search.php" method="post">
            directory path to search: <input type="text" name="dir" />
            <input type="submit" />
        </form>

...that calls "search.php"

<?php
$internalpath = $_POST['dir'];
$fileList = glob($internalpath . "{*.pdf}", GLOB_BRACE);
foreach($fileList as $filename) {
        echo $filename."<br>";}
?>

Nothing happens! This is so confusing!! What can I be doing wrong here?? Any idea??

Al.

kristo5747

I modified my code, hardcoded values, ran the script from the command line, Opendir() returned TRUE and retrieved results. I modified my code, hardcoded values, ran the script through the server and Opendir() returned FALSE.

<?php
$mydir = '/home/abonne/CelesticaJabil/';
$mysearch = 'pdf';

echo "mydir:". $mydir .".<br>";
echo "mysearch:". $mysearch.".<br>";

$dir = opendir($mydir);

if ($dir ) {
    //List files in directory
    while (($file = readdir($dir)) !== false)
    //Ignores OS stuff.
    if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
        if (preg_match('/.'.$mysearch. '$/', $file)) {
            echo "filename: " . $file . "<br />";
        }
    }
    closedir($dir);
} else { echo "opendir() returned FALSE!";
    exit;
}

Very likely, my problem must be related to my Apache settings. What settings do I need to modify for it to see my directory??

NogDog

Remember that when run via the web server, the script is usually run under a separate web server user account, not your personal login account. So for the script to operate on files and directories, those files/directories must have the applicable read/write permissions for the web server account to access them.

kristo5747

NogDog;10914627 wrote:
Remember that when run via the web server, the script is usually run under a separate web server user account, not your personal login account. So for the script to operate on files and directories, those files/directories must have the applicable read/write permissions for the web server account to access them.

Bingo!! Problem had nothing to do with Apache settings.

I opened the directory for read/write and made the files contained in this directory r/w as well.

It worked. 🙂

😃Thank you.