In PHP, it is possible to get a list of files and folders and save them into an array: PHP: List files in a directory. Building on this, I have added recursion to the dirList function detailed in the aforementioned link:
/**
* Return a list of all files within a directory
*
* @param string $directory The directory to search
* @param bool $recursive Go through child directories as well
* @return array
*/
function dirList($directory, $recursive = true)
{
// create an array to hold directory list
$results = array();
// create a handler for the directory
$handler = opendir($directory);
// keep going until all files in directory have been read
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handler)))
{
// if $file isn't this directory or its parent,
// add it to the results array
if ($file != '.' && $file != '..')
{
// if the file is a directory
// add contents of that directory
if(is_dir($directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file) && $recursive === true)
{
$results[] = array($file => dirList($directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$file));
}
else
{
$results[] = $file;
}
}
}
// tidy up: close the handler
closedir($handler);
// done!
return $results;
}
Now you can build a list of files/folders generated with dirList:
/**
* Return an unordered html list of all files within a directory
*
* @param string $directory The directory to search
* @param array $fileTypes Which fileTypes to show. To list all files use htmlDirList("mydir", array("*"))
* @param bool $recursive Search through child directories as well
* @param string $listClassName The class name to apply to the <ul>
* @param function $displayName A function to call on the file to determine how it is displayed (e.g. change _ to space)
* @return array
*/
function htmlDirList($directory, $fileTypes = null, $recursive = true, $listClassName = null, $displayName = null)
{
// defaults (if null)
// restrict by fileTypes
$fileTypes = (is_null($fileTypes) ? array("doc","rtf","pdf") : $fileTypes);
// the class name to apply to the <ul>
$listClassName = (is_null($listClassName) ? "documents" : $listClassName);
// set a default function for displayName
$displayName = (is_null($displayName) ? create_function('$fileName,$extension', 'return str_replace("_", " ", $fileName);') : $displayName);
// get list of files / folders
$list = dirList($directory, $recursive);
// use an array for building up the string
$results = array();
// create the list
$results[] = "<ul class=\"$listClassName\">\n";
foreach ( $list as $value )
{
// is a folder
if(is_array($value))
{
$results[] = "<li class=\"directory\">".$displayName(key($value),"")."\n".htmlDirList($directory.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.key($value), $fileTypes, $recursive, $listClassName, $displayName)."</li>\n";
}
else
{
// the extension is after the last "."
$extension = strtolower(array_pop(explode(".", $value)));
// the file name is before the last "."
$fileName = array_shift(explode(".", $value));
// continue to next item if not one of the desired file types
if(!in_array("*", $fileTypes) && !in_array($extension, $fileTypes)) continue;
// add the list item
$results[] = "<li class=\"file $extension\"><a href=\"".str_replace("\\", "/", $directory)."/$value\">".$displayName($fileName, $extension)."</a></li>\n";
}
}
$results[] = "\n</ul>";
// return the results as a string
return implode("", $results);
}
So now you can get create documents within a folder and have a page listing all those documents, all linked to. In your PHP page:
<?php echo htmlDirList("documents") ?>
The generated code is not formatted, but doing so would add further complexity and be of no benefit (apart from readability).
<ul class="documents">
<li class="file doc"><a href="files/File1.doc">File1</a></li>
<li class="file pdf"><a href="files/File_2.pdf">File 2</a></li>
<li class="file rtf"><a href="files/File_3.rtf">File 3</a></li>
<li class="directory">more
<ul class="documents">
<li class="file doc"><a href="files/File4.doc">File4</a></li>
<li class="file pdf"><a href="files/File_5.pdf">File 5</a></li>
<li class="file rtf"><a href="files/File_6.rtf">File 6</a></li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
There are also more options available, e.g. you may want an image listing:
<?php echo htmlDirList("images", array("jpg","gif","png"), true, "images") ?>