find and fopen a file with random/unknown name with php

Question

I've searched around google for a way to fopen and read a file with an unknown/random name in a specific folder with a specific extension (it will be the only file in that folder, but it gets updated every hour with a new name), but couldn't find anything. Previously the file had the same name every time unfortunately now it changes...

previously i had to only define it this way:

$file = "/var/uploads/quarter.csv";
$handle = @fopen($file, "r"); 

but with a random name it doesn't work anymore.

so, I've tried:

function the_file($dir = '/var/uploads/') {
    $files = glob($dir . '/*.csv');
    $file = $files;
}

$handle = @fopen($file, "r");

script continues...

but it doesn't work. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

The $file variable doesn't exist outside the function scope and hence you won't be able to use it outside the function. Also, glob() returns an array -- if there is only one file, you can just get the first element of the array and return it, like so:

function the_file($dir = '/var/uploads/') {
    $files = glob($dir . '/*.csv');
    return $files[0]; // return the first filename
}

Now to store it in a variable, you can do:

$file = the_file(); // or specify a directory
# code ...