php.is_dir()

When working with files and directories, it may be essential to actually verify that the specified file is a directory. For example, when iterating through a directory, it can be useful to check that you are processing files and not subdirectories.

In this post, we will learn how to use the is_dir() function to check if a given file is a directory or a regular file.

PHP is_dir() Function

As the name suggests, the is_dir function allows us to tell whether a given filename is a directory or not.

The function syntax is as shown:

is_dir(string $filename): bool

The function accepts one parameter:

1. filename - denotes the path to the filename you wish to check. If the specifiedfilename is a symbolic or hard link then the link will be resolved and checked.

The function will then return a Boolean value with true denoting the file is a directory and false denoting otherwise.

Example

The following snippet demonstrates how to use the is_dir() to check if a given file is a directory.

$path = '/path/to/directory';
if (is_dir($path)) {
    echo "$path is a directory";
} else {
    echo "$path is not a directory";
}

In this example, the is_dir() function allows us to check if the $path variable points to a directory. If it does, we print the message path/to/directory otherwise, the message path/to/directory is not a directory is printed.

Conclusion

In this post, you learned how to use the is_dir() function to check whether an input file is a directory or not.