How to Accurately Determine if a Directory is Empty in PHP, Including Hidden Files?

Determine Directory Emptiness in PHP

You want to check if a directory is empty using PHP but your current script is providing inconsistent results. Let's examine the problem and explore a reliable solution.

Your code uses glob to retrieve the files in the directory. However, glob has a limitation: it cannot detect hidden files starting with a dot (e.g., ".gitignore"). As a result, your script may report the directory as empty even though hidden files are present.

To overcome this limitation, you can replace glob with scandir. scandir reads all files within a directory, including hidden files. You can modify your code as follows:

<code class="php">$dir = '/assets/'.$pid.'/v';
if (is_dir_empty($dir)) {
  echo "the folder is empty"; 
}else{
  echo "the folder is NOT empty";
}

function is_dir_empty($dir) {
  return (count(scandir($dir)) == 2);
}</code>

The is_dir_empty function counts the number of files in the directory and compares it to 2 (representing "." and ".."). If the count is 2, the directory is empty.

Alternatively, you can use opendir and readdir to loop through the directory and check for non-hidden files:

<code class="php">function dir_is_empty($dir) {
  $handle = opendir($dir);
  while (false !== ($entry = readdir($handle))) {
    if ($entry != "." && $entry != "..") {
      closedir($handle);
      return false;
    }
  }
  closedir($handle);
  return true;
}</code>

By using these methods, you can accurately determine whether a directory is empty, even if it contains hidden files. Additionally, consider using boolean values instead of words ("Empty" or "Not empty") for clearer and more concise code.

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