How do I check if a directory exists? "is_dir", "file_exists" or both?

Solution 1:

Both would return true on Unix systems - in Unix everything is a file, including directories. But to test if that name is taken, you should check both. There might be a regular file named 'foo', which would prevent you from creating a directory name 'foo'.

Solution 2:

$dirname = $_POST["search"];
$filename = "/folder/" . $dirname . "/";

if (!file_exists($filename)) {
    mkdir("folder/" . $dirname, 0777);
    echo "The directory $dirname was successfully created.";
    exit;
} else {
    echo "The directory $dirname exists.";
}

Solution 3:

I think realpath() may be the best way to validate if a path exist http://www.php.net/realpath

Here is an example function:

<?php
/**
 * Checks if a folder exist and return canonicalized absolute pathname (long version)
 * @param string $folder the path being checked.
 * @return mixed returns the canonicalized absolute pathname on success otherwise FALSE is returned
 */
function folder_exist($folder)
{
    // Get canonicalized absolute pathname
    $path = realpath($folder);

    // If it exist, check if it's a directory
    if($path !== false AND is_dir($path))
    {
        // Return canonicalized absolute pathname
        return $path;
    }

    // Path/folder does not exist
    return false;
}

Short version of the same function

<?php
/**
 * Checks if a folder exist and return canonicalized absolute pathname (sort version)
 * @param string $folder the path being checked.
 * @return mixed returns the canonicalized absolute pathname on success otherwise FALSE is returned
 */
function folder_exist($folder)
{
    // Get canonicalized absolute pathname
    $path = realpath($folder);

    // If it exist, check if it's a directory
    return ($path !== false AND is_dir($path)) ? $path : false;
}

Output examples

<?php
/** CASE 1 **/
$input = '/some/path/which/does/not/exist';
var_dump($input);               // string(31) "/some/path/which/does/not/exist"
$output = folder_exist($input);
var_dump($output);              // bool(false)

/** CASE 2 **/
$input = '/home';
var_dump($input);
$output = folder_exist($input);         // string(5) "/home"
var_dump($output);              // string(5) "/home"

/** CASE 3 **/
$input = '/home/..';
var_dump($input);               // string(8) "/home/.."
$output = folder_exist($input);
var_dump($output);              // string(1) "/"

Usage

<?php

$folder = '/foo/bar';

if(FALSE !== ($path = folder_exist($folder)))
{
    die('Folder ' . $path . ' already exist');
}

mkdir($folder);
// Continue do stuff

Solution 4:

Second variant in question post is not ok, because, if you already have file with the same name, but it is not a directory, !file_exists($dir) will return false, folder will not be created, so error "failed to open stream: No such file or directory" will be occured. In Windows there is a difference between 'file' and 'folder' types, so need to use file_exists() and is_dir() at the same time, for ex.:

if (file_exists('file')) {
    if (!is_dir('file')) { //if file is already present, but it's not a dir
        //do something with file - delete, rename, etc.
        unlink('file'); //for example
        mkdir('file', NEEDED_ACCESS_LEVEL);
    }
} else { //no file exists with this name
    mkdir('file', NEEDED_ACCESS_LEVEL);
}