How Can I Recursively List All Files and Folders in a Directory Using PHP, Avoiding Infinite Loops and Duplicate Entries?

Determining Files and Folders in a Directory Utilizing Recursive PHP Functions

This discussion investigates a method for traversing a directory's files and subdirectories recursively.

The provided code:

function getDirContents($dir){
    $results = array();
    $files = scandir($dir);
    foreach($files as $key => $value){
        if(!is_dir($dir. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR .$value)){
            $results[] = $value;
        } else if(is_dir($dir. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR .$value)) {
            $results[] = $value;
            getDirContents($dir. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR .$value);
        }
    }
}
print_r(getDirContents('/xampp/htdocs/WORK'));

The Dilemma:
The given code possesses a recursive function for exploring directories and files. However, it fails to disregard '.' and '..', resulting in a potentially endless loop. Moreover, each file and directory is duplicated in the results.

The Answer:
To address this issue, we can modify the function as follows:

function getDirContents($dir, &$results = array()) {
    $files = scandir($dir);
    foreach ($files as $key => $value) {
        $path = realpath($dir . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $value);
        if (!is_dir($path)) {
            $results[] = $path;
        } else if ($value != "." && $value != "..") {
            getDirContents($path, $results);
            $results[] = $path;
        }
    }
    return $results;
}

This code:

• Calls the realpath() function to retrieve the actual path of each file and directory, eliminating any potential traversal issues.
• Ignores directories denoted by '.' or '..', which could lead to infinite loops.
• Avoids duplicate entries in the results by storing them in a passed-by-reference array (&$results).

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