DevPapers - article How to list the contents of a directory

Firstly we need to define the full server path to the folder:

$path = "/home/user/public/foldername/";

To open the directory we use PHPs opendir. Placing an @ sign in front prevents any error messages being shown, so you might want to exclude that until you test the script.

$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open $path");

Now that the directory is open we can loop through the files and display them using readdir

while (false !== ($file = readdir($dir_handle))) {

echo "<a href=\"$file\">$file</a><br />";

}

You'll notice that the directory listing file itself is displayed. To prevent that from being shown we would add the following line before we echo the results:

if($file == "index.php") continue;

Finally, for good measure we close the directory.

closedir($dir_handle);

That's all there is to it. You can of course format the results any way you wish.

The script in full is as follows:

<?php

// Define the full path to your folder

$path = "/home/user/public/foldername/";



// Open the folder

$dir_handle = @opendir($path) or die("Unable to open $path");



// Loop through the files

while (false !== ($file = readdir($dir_handle))) {



    // Prevent this file itself being shown

    if($file == "index.php")

    continue;



    // Display the results

    echo "<a href=\"$file\">$file</a><br />";



}



// Close it

closedir($dir_handle);



?>