extention

easy one

[WhosAWhata]

how can you search a dir for only one file extention
<?
$n = 1;
if (is_dir(catalogs/$cat)) {
$dir = "products/";
$dh = opendir($dir);
while (false!== ($filename = readdir($dh))) {
if (($filename!= ".") AND ($filename!= "..")) {
// here is where my code goes
// if $filename's extention ==.php then.....

}
}
}
?>

[coopster]

There are a couple of ways. One is to check the last four characters of the filename...

if ($filename!= "." AND $filename!= ".." and substr($filename, -4) != '.xyz') { 

...or, alternatively, you could use PHP's pathinfo() [php.net] function.

[WhosAWhata]

thanks...once again you've saved my life...or at least my site (same thing)

[BitBanger]

Another possibly easier solution is to use glob().

foreach (glob("*.php") as $filename) { 
  echo "$filename<br />"; 
}  

[coopster]

That's cool, BitBanger. Thanks for the tip!

[ergophobe]

glob
(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0)

Geez! Gotta reread the manual with every release (not that I'm complaining, mind you, except perhaps about my own ignorance).

Maybe PHP 9 will finally have the holy grail, the

do_what_I_want_not_what_say()

function and then they can just stop adding stuff.

Tom

[coopster]

I hear ya, ergophobe. I guess we just have to follow the advice of one jatar_k [webmasterworld.com],

I have gotten into reading the changefile for new releases of php too. I can't tell you how many times I have found a function that I have had to custom build in the past.

Sometimes when I have a little time I go through the functions in the manual to see if I can find something exciting or to just see how I could use some of the functions that I don't normally play with.

[BitBanger]

Strangely enough, I just had to do the opposite. I found a neat function called array_combine() that exactly fit the bill. I coded it into a script and got a php error 'function array_combine() not found'. Seems I didn't look quite close enough at the function documentation as it is a PHP5 function.

I ended up coding my own. :(

[WhosAWhata]

personally i've found that coding my own functions is helpful, but very time consuming
i always end up spending so much time fixing errors that it seems like its almost not worth it