scandir - how to get original folders - files order

Question

items inside fs folder:

lorem  
ipsum  
sun  
moon.php  

function get_items($path){
    $arr = scandir($path);
    $arr = array_slice($arr, 2);
    foreach($arr as $el){
        if(is_dir($el)){
            echo "<div class='folder'>" . $el . "</div>\n";
        }
        else{
            echo "<div class='file'>" . $el . "</div>\n";
        }
    }
}

Result - all items are echoed as class - file and in the following order:

ipsum  
lorem  
moon.php  
sun 

How to get folders as folder and in original order - first folders and then files ?

lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum

Answer 1

The code you posted may have issues because scandir return just the name of files and folders, not their absolute path.

When you later use is_dir you pass just the file/folder name (a relative path). When doing so, according to the documentation

If filename is a relative filename, it will be checked relative to the current working directory.

---

You can fix your code by passing a correct path to is_dir

is_dir("$path/$el")

In order for this solution to work $path must not have the trailing slash (because we do add it).

Furthermore $path must be either an absolute path to the target directory or a path to the target directory relative to the working directory the script is run.

---

Finally to list folders first then files you may sort the array or, more simply, make two foreach loops as follows:

function get_items($path){
    $arr = scandir($path);
    $arr = array_slice($arr, 2);

    sort($arr);

    // Folders first
    foreach($arr as $el){
        if(is_dir("$path/$el")){
            echo "<div class='folder'>" . $el . "</div>\n";
        }
    }

    // Then files
    foreach($arr as $el){
        if( ! is_dir("$path/$el")){
            echo "<div class='file'>" . $el . "</div>\n";
        }
    }
}