PHP – File Delete
You know how to create a file. You know how to open a file in an assortment of different ways. You even know how to read and write data from a file!
Now it’s time to learn how to destroy (delete) files. In PHP you delete files by calling the unlink function.
=> PHP – File Unlink
When you view the contents of a directory you can see all the files that exist in that directory because the operating system or application that you are using displays a list of filenames. You can think of these filenames as links that join the files to the directory you are currently viewing.
If you unlink a file, you are effectively causing the system to forget about it or delete it!
Before you can delete (unlink) a file, you must first be sure that it is not open in your program. Use the fclose function to close down an open file.
=> PHP – Unlink Function
Remember from the PHP File Create lesson that we created a file named testFile.txt.
PHP Code:
$myFile = “testFile.txt”;
$fh = fopen($myFile, ‘w’) or die(“can’t open file”);
fclose($fh);
Now to delete testFile.txt we simply run a PHP script that is located in the same directory. Unlink just needs to know the name of the file to start working its destructive magic.
PHP Code:
$myFile = “testFile.txt”;
unlink($myFile);
The testFile.txt should now be removed.
PHP – Unlink: Safety First!
With great power comes a slough of potential things you can mess up! When you are performing the unlink function be sure that you are deleting the right file!