PHP: mkdir - Manual

[/] downloads | documentation | faq | getting help | mailing lists | reporting bugs | php.net sites | links | conferences | my php.net s earch for in the function list all php.net sites this mirror only online documentation bug database Site News Archive All Changelogs just pear.php.net just pecl.php.net just talks.php.net general mailing list developer mailing list documentation mailing list PHP Manual Filesystem Functions basename chgrp chmod chown clearstatcache copy delete dirname disk_ free_ space disk_ total_ space diskfreespace fclose feof fflush fgetc fgetcsv fgets fgetss file_ exists file_ get_ contents file_ put_ contents file fileatime filectime filegroup fileinode filemtime fileowner fileperms filesize filetype flock fnmatch fopen fpassthru fputcsv fputs fread fscanf fseek fstat ftell ftruncate fwrite glob is_ dir is_ executable is_ file is_ link is_ readable is_ uploaded_ file is_ writable is_ writeable lchgrp lchown link linkinfo lstat mkdir move_ uploaded_ file parse_ ini_ file pathinfo pclose popen readfile readlink realpath rename rewind rmdir set_ file_ buffer stat symlink tempnam tmpfile touch umask unlink move_uploaded_file lstat Last updated: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 view this page in Brazilian Portuguese Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Hong Kong Cantonese) Chinese (Traditional) Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Italian Japanese Korean Polish Romanian Russian Slovak Spanish Swedish mkdir (PHP 4, PHP 5) mkdir — Makes directory Description bool mkdir ( string $pathname [, int $mode [, bool $recursive [, resource $context]]] ) Attempts to create the directory specified by pathname. Note that you probably want to specify the mode as an octal number, which means it should have a leading zero. The mode is also modified by the current umask, which you can change using umask() . Note: Mode is ignored on Windows, and became optional in PHP 4.2.0. The mode is 0777 by default, which means the widest possible access. For more information on modes, read the details on the chmod() page. Example 635. mkdir() example Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure. Note: As of PHP 5.0.0 mkdir() can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to Appendix N, List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a listing of which wrappers support mkdir() . Note: Context support was added with PHP 5.0.0. For a description of contexts , refer to Streams . Note: The recursive parameter was added as of PHP 5.0.0. Note: When safe mode is enabled, PHP checks whether the directory in which you are about to operate has the same UID (owner) as the script that is being executed. See also rmdir() . add a note User Contributed Notes mkdir alex_web at mail dot ru 16-May-2007 08:07 One note about recursive dir creating. I consider it`s better to use original function instead of cycles or recursion. Smth like this: kendsnyder at gmail dot com 04-May-2007 06:17 When creating directories in Windows, trailing periods (".") are ignored. for example: This is a Window's quirk, not a php shortcoming--meaning that you get the same results from a Window's command prompt. glenn at bengeweb dot co dot nz 13-Mar-2007 07:00 I've discovered that since my (shared) hosting provider upgraded to PHP 5.1.6 , a script containing this mkdir doesn't work: but this does work: the difference being, the trailing slash "/" after "extra_large. There were three ways to fix the problem: 1. remove the trailing slash from the script code 2. downgrade to < PHP 5.1.6 3. turn safe mode off I went with option 1. sean at pedlr dot com 09-Mar-2007 06:58 It should be noted that although the documentation says that the default permissions for mkdir are 0777, this is not always the case. I'm running LAMP and without explicitly setting the permissions, the directories created had permissions of 0755. Ari Schulman (ario [] mail utexas edu) 09-Jan-2007 01:02 Re: john 4t idserver d0t org, and djneoform at gmail dot com's posts from 27 Oct 2006: On Windows systems, several keywords are reserved and cannot be used as filenames, in addition to just CON and PRN. Attempting to create a folder with one of these names using mkdir will throw the unhelpful error "Invalid argument". According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp ?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp : "Do not use the following reserved device names for the name of a file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9. Also avoid these names followed by an extension, for example, NUL.tx7. Windows NT: CLOCK$ is also a reserved device name." These keywords are also case-insensitive. I don't know what problems are posed by using these keywords with extensions, but I successfully created a folder named "con_f". fantasysportswire at yahoo dot com 21-Dec-2006 04:07 One small correction on a note from Frank in June 2006 on recursive directories under Windows. First - this should be in the documentation as its the only function that I know of that php does not fix the slashes automatically. Franks note stated: This doesn't work in windows: ---- This will work a bit better :) v1d4l0k4 {at} gmail.com 13-Nov-2006 05:42 The 'mkdir' function doesn't function correctly on Windows when the pathname contain space(s) on the final. PHP returns a warning, and the directory isn't created: Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: Invalid argument in X on line Y Temporary fix: use trim() on the pathname Besides, if the pathname contain space(s) on the start, the directory is created when couldn't even so (in accordance with the behavior of Windows Explorer). ~ v1d4l0k4 brendan at bloodbone dot ws 10-Nov-2006 04:10 The only function that I could get to work for making recursive directories was kungla at gmail dot com's. That might save some people trouble. (PHP4) V-Tec (vojtech.vitek at seznam dot cz) 07-Nov-2006 01:42 This is the way how to create all the path, if you don't know exactly what folders and sub-folders really exist. The function works with absolute or relative path of some folder or file. It works correctly. puckje_piet at hotmail dot com 06-Nov-2006 07:07 Note that, well at least in cpanel10, you will be unable to remove the folder from the folder list if you've created it with mkdir(). You will need an FTP program to remove the folder. If you that doesn't work, you can write a small script save as a file. You can acces it by FILENAME.php?rem=PATH_TO_FILE. I suggest you protect this with a password though -Duveaux john 4t idserver d0t org 27-Oct-2006 09:27 Windows reserves the names PRN and CON as they are devices in DOS. Back in the day, you could easily print a document via "type filename.txt > PRN". CON is the console. To create a file from scratch under dos you do: COPY CON filename.txt It then allows you to type until you press CTRL-D. djneoform at gmail dot com 27-Oct-2006 05:28 Forewarning to windows users. If you try to create a directory called "prn" or "con" windows will reject the name and cause an error. apparently (i found this out the hard way) windows simply cannot have directories by those names, who knows why.. mroy at matthewroy dot com 11-Oct-2006 05:51 fixed bug with the previous script: else if (!ftp_site($connection, "CHMOD 0777 $newDir"){ // change attributes is missing an ")" so it should read: else if (!ftp_site($connection, "CHMOD 0777 $newDir")) { // change attributes Lars Pätzold 29-Aug-2006 03:44 Just a small addition to Han Van den Hoof's ftp script which is really useful for scripts on shared servers. I added a chmod command. This is necessary if you want to access the directory later via script. I also fixed the small bug with the 2 variables connection & conn_id ;) And last not least ftp connection is closed even if ftp commands fail. Sometimes ftp login will fail due to bad luck. Therefore one should add a loop for retrying. PHGN 13-Aug-2006 09:13 I've been wrestling with mkdir on a server with safe mode turned on (I think, I kept getting barmy permissions on the new dirs). In the end the solution was to use: exec (mkdir ... exec (chmod ... For this to work I had to use the setuid bit on the script itself. I tried this with the mkdir() function, but to no avail. (To do the setuid bit I ran chmod 4775 on the script file from the command line.) malmsteenforce at tlen dot pl 20-Jul-2006 01:39 I have trouble with recursively of mk_dir function ,with slashes and backslashes, so I`ve solved this below : " . $path . " successfully created" ); } mkpath ( "./dir1\dir2/dir3\\\dir4////dir5" ); //this works without errors ?> kungla at gmail dot com 18-Jul-2006 03:41 Somehow the recursive version of mkdir didn't work for me on Mac and the workaraounds listed below alsow didn't work for me, so heres my solution: 0 ) mkdir ( $dir , $rights ); } } ?> Tested and works ;) Frank 13-Jul-2006 12:51 cost me an hour to get recursive switch to work in windows with php 5.2.0, so share it here. The key is backward slash in windows , this php version doesn't recognize forward slash as valid path separator for mkdir(), though other functions support forward-slashed paths just fine. The following example works in Windows: This doesn't work in windows: jamespilcher1hotmail 08-Apr-2006 03:53 one small gotcha: mkdir(""), mkdir(false), and mkdir(null) give a "file exists" error. this is also true of a directory name consisting of any string that only contains space characters. (this was on php 5.1.2 on Windows 2000) bat at flurf dot net 22-Mar-2006 07:23 A little understanding of LISPlike programming makes this sort of task (recursive mkdir()ing in PHP4) much simpler. This version works nicely: How it works: line one attempts to make the directory, and returns TRUE if it works or if it already exists. That's the easy case if the parent directories all exist. Line two trims off the last directory name using dirname(), and calls MakeDirectory recursively on that shorter directory. If that fails, it returns FALSE, but otherwise we come out of it knowing that the parent directory definitely exists. Finally, presuming the recursive call worked, once we get to line three we can create the requested directory. Note the use of @ to suppress warning messages from mkdir. The beauty of this is that if, say, the great-grandparent directory exists but the grandparent and parent directories don't, the function will simply call itself recursively until it gets high enough up the tree to do some work, then carry on unwinding back until all the new directories have been created. This is pretty bog-standard recursive programming. Anyone who can't wrap their head around it after a few minutes of concentration should probably try a career in sales. Ali Baba 10-Mar-2006 11:26 Greg, your code does not work for me; maybe it has a bug or we have configuration changes. Anyway, this one works to create recursively the directory DIRECTORY. 18-Jan-2006 07:48 function mkdirs($dir, $mode = 0777, $recursive = true) { if( is_null($dir) || $dir === "" ){ return FALSE; } if( is_dir($dir) || $dir === "/" ){ return TRUE; } if( mkdirs(dirname($dir), $mode, $recursive) ){ return mkdir($dir, $mode); } return FALSE; } baldurien at club-internet dot fr 18-Jan-2006 01:14 For those wandering about the $recursive flag of mkdir in php5, this function will do what you want (� la java) in php 4: = 0 ; $n -- ) { $s = $path . '/' . $stack [ $n ]; if ( ! mkdir ( $s , $mode ) ) { for ( $m = count ( $created ) - 1 ; $m >= 0 ; $m -- ) rmdir ( $created [ $m ]); return false ; } $created [] = $s ; $path = $s ; } return true ; } ?> The main idea here is to use a stack to store the invalid dirname (using basename/dirname), and then pop each item on the stack to create directory from a valid path (here: $path = realpath($path). If we fails creating one directory, we must remove them in the reverse order of creation (stackes :)). This works on Windows XP, and it should work on Linux (actually, I did not tested it). Note that this code is a part of one of my classes (named FileSystem), and that you should use your own basename/realpath/dirname/mkdir/rmdir function instead of php one (even if you use them behind). This will allow you to separate the item of a FileSystem from what is it really (FTP? Local ? Telnet? Teletubbies?) Sean at seanj dot jcink dot com 24-Dec-2005 04:10 Mkdir will work on parent directories as long as file permissions are right and the openbase restriction is not on. ~Sean trond at trondhuso dot no 14-Dec-2005 10:10 While researching for this function, I have found out that - at least on my system - mkdir only works when the parent directory is the one your script is in. eg: you want to create a directory tmp mkdir ('tmp', 0775); will create /path/to/your/script/tmp but if you this mkdir ('/path/to/your/tmp', 0755); or mkdir ('../tmp', 0755); both will cause an error - permission denied. Trond Slawek Petrykowski 15-Nov-2005 09:20 Kevin Cook wrote: "I could not get the sticky bit set properly using the octal mode: 2775 (rwxrwsr-x)" Try 02775 instead, Kevin. killroy /at/ gmail 02-Nov-2005 07:49 Here's a 3 line version, only superficially tested on win: Kevin Cook 02-Nov-2005 07:14 I could not get the sticky bit set properly using the octal mode: 2775 (rwxrwsr-x) $foo='my_directory'; $old_umask = umask(0); mkdir($foo,2775); umask($old_umask); using the above lines renders a directory with permissions: d-wx-wSrwt 2 www www 4096 Nov 2 11:43 my_directory Not exactly what I was looking for. This gets closer to the mark: $foo='my_directory'; $old_umask = umask(0); mkdir($foo,0777); // the default chmod umask($old_umask); drwxrwsrwx 2 www www 4096 Nov 2 11:46 my_directory ephraim at coder-board dot info 11-Oct-2005 09:38 When safe_mode is enabled, and you create a directory via mkdir, you can't create a second inside the first because the first folder's user is that one of the webserver and not that one of the script. This is dumb and very annoying :( greg at NOserberusSPAM dot co dot uk 05-Oct-2005 11:51 Recursive directory creation routine. This could be adapted to work on Windows but this code is written for use on a Linux/Unix based machine. funke 16-Sep-2005 10:51 Ive onlybeen coding in PHP for a couple of months so i Don't have all the syntax tricks down yet. I wrote this function to create all the dirs in a path if they don't exist. its not actually recursive but i was to lazy to change the name :) theoretically i want it to work for both win and nix. As soon my project manager gets me a win box i'm gonna test it out. anyrevisions to the function below would be appreciated. "; mkdir ( $thispath , $mode ); } } } ?> Steven Ng 09-Jun-2005 09:37 I had to remove the $path in the CHMOD command before the function worked for me. The function was at the $path directory prior to initiating the CHMOD command, so it tried to go down the $path directory again. // create directory through FTP connection function FtpMkdir($path, $newDir) { $server='ftp.server.com'; // ftp server $connection = ftp_connect($server); // connection // login to ftp server $user = "me"; $pass = "pass"; $result = ftp_login($connection, $user, $pass); // check if connection was made if ((!$connection) || (!$result)) { return false; exit(); } else { ftp_chdir($connection, $path); // go to destination dir if(ftp_mkdir($connection, $newDir)) { // create directory ftp_site($connection, "CHMOD 777 $newDir") or die("FTP SITE CMD failed."); return $newDir; } else { return false; } ftp_close($connection); // close connection } } FtpMkdir("path","dir"); David Pullen 29-May-2005 03:20 A simple recursive mkdir function: roth at egotec dot com 23-May-2005 09:43 The 'mkdir' function doesn't function correctly on Windows when the path contains forward slashes. The part of the path with the forward slashes doesn't get created. mkdir('c:/a/b/c/d', 0775, true); You get the error message: Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory Please use backslashes under Windows or use the constant DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR. mkdir('c:\a\b\c\d', 0775, true); mkdir('c:'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'a'. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'b'. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'c'. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'d', 0775, true); webmaster2007 at home dot nl 28-Apr-2005 06:27 Maybe you can use this: yknot7 at hotmail dot com 13-Apr-2005 09:59 Add permission using CHMOD in the above mentioned // create directory through FTP connection function FtpMkdir($path, $newDir) { $server='ftp.server.com'; // ftp server $connection = ftp_connect($server); // connection // login to ftp server $user = "me"; $pass = "pass"; $result = ftp_login($connection, $user, $pass); // check if connection was made if ((!$connection) || (!$result)) { return false; exit(); } else { ftp_chdir($connection, $path); // go to destination dir if(ftp_mkdir($connection, $newDir)) { // create directory ftp_site($connection, "CHMOD 777 $path/$newDir") or die("FTP SITE CMD failed."); return $newDir; } else { return false; } ftp_close($connection); // close connection } } FtpMkdir("path","dir"); mdap at dap dot ro 05-Apr-2005 12:26 at this example (from mkdir) : i found a mistake at the last line before } : ftp_close($conn_id); // close connection is not $conn_id is $connection Protik Mukherjee 03-Mar-2005 07:29 mkdir, file rw, permission related notes for Fedora 3//// If you are using Fedora 3 and are facing permission problems, better check if SElinux is enabled on ur system. It add an additional layer of security and as a result PHP cant write to the folder eventhough it has 777 permissions. It took me almost a week to deal with this! If you are not sure google for SElinux or 'disabling SELinux' and it may be the cure! Best of luck! Aleks Peshkov 26-Feb-2005 03:18 function makeDirs($strPath, $mode = 0777) //creates directory tree recursively { return is_dir($strPath) or ( makeDirs(dirname($strPath), $mode) and mkdir($strPath, $mode) ); } The simpler is the better. par dot sandgren at gmail dot com 11-Feb-2005 10:29 You might want to upload files into random named dir's, just to make it harder to guess the link. But still have some ID to know whats in there. aidan at php dot net 03-Oct-2004 05:17 This function creates a directory structure recursively. http://aidanlister.com/repos/v/function.mkdirr.php Han Van den Hoof 09-Nov-2003 08:28 If you're on a shared *nix server, a directory created through mkdir() will not be assigned to you, but to the user that your host's server or php process is running under, usually 'nobody', 'apache' or 'httpd'. In practice, this means that you can create directories, even add files to them, but you can't delete the directory or its contents nor change permissions. It is therefore advised to create directories through PHP's FTP API. Here's a function I wrote: Hope this comes in handy for someone. 28-Jun-2003 02:00 You might notice that when you create a new directory using this code: mkdir($dir, 0777); The created folder actually has permissions of 0755, instead of the specified 0777. Why is this you ask? Because of umask(): http://www.php.net/umask The default value of umask, at least on my setup, is 18. Which is 22 octal, or 0022. This means that when you use mkdir() to CHMOD the created folder to 0777, PHP takes 0777 and substracts the current value of umask, in our case 0022, so the result is 0755 - which is not what you wanted, probably. The "fix" for this is simple, include this line: $old_umask = umask(0); Right before creating a folder with mkdir() to have the actual value you put be used as the CHMOD. If you would like to return umask to its original value when you're done, use this: umask($old_umask); aulbach at unter dot franken dot de 23-Jul-1999 12:37 This is an annotation from Stig Bakken: The mode on your directory is affected by your current umask. It will end up having ( and (not )). If you want to create one that is publicly readable, do something like this: add a note move_uploaded_file lstat Last updated: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 show source | credits | sitemap | contact | advertising | mirror sites Copyright © 2001-2007 The PHP Group All rights reserved. This mirror generously provided by: PACOnet Last updated: Sun May 27 05:34:51 2007 EEST