Delete directory with files in it?

I generally use this to delete all files in a folder:

array_map('unlink', glob("$dirname/*.*"));

And then you can do

rmdir($dirname);

There are at least two options available nowadays.

1. Before deleting the folder, delete all its files and folders (and this means recursion!). Here is an example:

   public static function deleteDir($dirPath) {
       if (! is_dir($dirPath)) {
           throw new InvalidArgumentException("$dirPath must be a directory");
       }
       if (substr($dirPath, strlen($dirPath) - 1, 1) != '/') {
           $dirPath .= '/';
       }
       $files = glob($dirPath . '*', GLOB_MARK);
       foreach ($files as $file) {
           if (is_dir($file)) {
               self::deleteDir($file);
           } else {
               unlink($file);
           }
       }
       rmdir($dirPath);
   }
   

2. And if you are using 5.2+ you can use a RecursiveIterator to do it without implementing the recursion yourself:

   $dir = 'samples' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'sampledirtree';
   $it = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($dir, RecursiveDirectoryIterator::SKIP_DOTS);
   $files = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($it,
                RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST);
   foreach($files as $file) {
       if ($file->isDir()){
           rmdir($file->getRealPath());
       } else {
           unlink($file->getRealPath());
       }
   }
   rmdir($dir);
   

what's the easiest way to delete a directory with all its files in it?

system("rm -rf ".escapeshellarg($dir));

Short function that does the job:

function deleteDir($path) {
    return is_file($path) ?
            @unlink($path) :
            array_map(__FUNCTION__, glob($path.'/*')) == @rmdir($path);
}

I use it in a Utils class like this:

class Utils {
    public static function deleteDir($path) {
        $class_func = array(__CLASS__, __FUNCTION__);
        return is_file($path) ?
                @unlink($path) :
                array_map($class_func, glob($path.'/*')) == @rmdir($path);
    }
}

---

With great power comes great responsibility: When you call this function with an empty value, it will delete files starting in root (/). As a safeguard you can check if path is empty:

function deleteDir($path) {
    if (empty($path)) { 
        return false;
    }
    return is_file($path) ?
            @unlink($path) :
            array_map(__FUNCTION__, glob($path.'/*')) == @rmdir($path);
}