PHP opendir Function: Opening Directory Handles

The opendir function in PHP opens a directory handle that can be used with closedir(), readdir(), and rewinddir() for directory traversal.

Parameters

path : The directory path to open.

context : Optional context resource.

Return value

On success, it returns a resource representing the directory handle; on failure, it returns FALSE.

Example

<?php
$dir = "/etc/php5/";
// Open a known directory, and proceed to read its contents
if (is_dir($dir)) {
    $dh = opendir($dir);
    while (($file = readdir($dh)) !== false) {
        echo "filename: $file : filetype: " . filetype($dir . $file) . "
";
    }
    closedir($dh);
}
?>

The script checks that the directory exists, opens it with opendir, iterates over each entry using readdir, prints the filename and its type via filetype, and finally closes the handle with closedir.