Deleting files and folder from given path

Question

I have a folder called images, within the folders of the users like:

Images

• user 1
• user 2
• etc..

When i'm deleting a user from the database, i would like to also remove all the files and the folder of that given user. all this is inside a class with functions, but when i'm execute the function my whole folder images get deleted...

I already checked if the correct user is selected, if the path is allright. while i'm testing it on a test.php file it works well but inside my function it get broke.

if clicked te delete button it go to this function:

$user = new user();

$id = $_db->mysqli->real_escape_string($_POST['id']);

$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = '" .$id."'";
$result = $_db->mysqli->query($query);

$userNumb = $result->num_rows;
$finalUserNumb = $userNumb;

if ($finalUserNumb > 0) {
  $user->deleteUser($id);
}

Get the user info by the given id

public function userSelsectByID($selector, $id)
{
    $query = "SELECT " .$selector. " FROM users WHERE id ='" .$id."'";
    $result = $this->mysqli->query($query);
    $userInfo = $result->fetch_assoc();

    $itemResult = $userInfo[$selector];
    return $itemResult;
  }

delete files function

public function delete_files($target)
{
      if(is_dir($target)){
          $files = glob( $target . '*', GLOB_MARK ); //GLOB_MARK adds a slash to directories returned

          foreach( $files as $file ){
              $this->delete_files( $file );
              echo "Deleted ".$file." succesfull...</br>";
          }

          rmdir( $target );
      } elseif(is_file($target)) {
          unlink( $target );
      }
  }

delete the user function

public function deleteUser($id)
{
    $user               = "DELETE FROM users WHERE id = '$id'";
    $userResult         = $this->mysqli->query($user);

    $uren               = "DELETE FROM uren WHERE user_id = '$id'";
    $urenResult         = $this->mysqli->query($uren);

    $cookieLogin        = "DELETE FROM cookieLogin WHERE user_id = '$id'";
    $cookieLoginResult  = $this->mysqli->query($cookieLogin);

    $gebruikersnaam = str_replace(' ', '_', $this->userSelsectByID('gebruikersnaam', $id));
    $this->delete_files('/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/'.$gebruikersnaam);
  }

I want that the folder with the username is deleted, but in fact the whole images folder gets deleted... i have tried a lot but nothing works :(

Someone that can help me?

Answer 1

I think you have missed a slash before the star

$files = glob( $target . '/*');

UPDATE

Let's do some analysis.

1. the username is "test"
2. you call $this->delete_files('/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/test');
3. the target is a directory - so you take a glob('/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/test/*')
4. the glob returns an empty array - so you do not delete any files
5. then you make rmdir('/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/test'); and get out of the function

The only way this can go wrong is if your username is an empty string.

Answer 2

In your deleteUser function you delete the user prior to selecting their username from the database.

I suspect that this causes this->userSelsectByID() to return null , resulting in passing '/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/' to $this->delete_files() instead.

You would need to adjust your order of operations, to ensure the username is retrieved before removing it from the database, as well as ensure the username and user's directory exists before passing it to $this->delete_files() .

public function deleteUser($id)
{
    $gebruikersnaam = str_replace(' ', '_', $this->userSelsectByID('gebruikersnaam', $id));
    $userImagesPath = '/sites/domain.nl/www/admin/images/'.$gebruikersnaam;

    $user               = "DELETE FROM users WHERE id = '$id'";
    $userResult         = $this->mysqli->query($user);

    $uren               = "DELETE FROM uren WHERE user_id = '$id'";
    $urenResult         = $this->mysqli->query($uren);

    $cookieLogin        = "DELETE FROM cookieLogin WHERE user_id = '$id'";
    $cookieLoginResult  = $this->mysqli->query($cookieLogin);

    if (!empty($gebruikersnaam) && is_dir($userImagesPath)) {
        $this->delete_files($userImagesPath);
    }
  }

---

As an alternative to recursively using glob within a function. I recommend using the RecursiveDirectoryIterator instead.

Which will allow you to retrieve a list of all files and directories in the order they should be deleted:

Given a directory structure of

/home/fyrye/test/images
   - user1
       - 2018-12
           - image1.jpg
           - image2.jpg
       - 2019-01
           - image1.jpg
           - image2.jpg
   - user2
       - 2019-01
           - image1.jpg
           - image2.jpg
       - 2018-12
           - image1.jpg
           - image2.jpg

Then to delete the user1 directory and everything inside of it.

$directory = '/home/fyrye/test/images/user1';

$ri = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
    new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($directory, FilesystemIterator::SKIP_DOTS | FilesystemIterator::KEY_AS_PATHNAME | FilesystemIterator::CURRENT_AS_FILEINFO),
    RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST
);
/**
 * @var string $path
 * @var \SplFileInfo $splFileInfo
 */
foreach ($ri as $path => $splFileInfo) {
    if ($splFileInfo->isDir()) {
        rmdir($path);
        echo 'deleted directory: ' . $path;
    } elseif ($splFileInfo->isFile()) {
        unlink($path);
        echo 'deleted file: ' . $path;
    }
}
rmdir($directory);
echo 'deleted directory: ' $directory;

Results:

deleted file: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2018-12/image1.jpg
deleted file: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2018-12/image2.jpg
deleted directory: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2018-12
deleted file: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2019-01/image1.jpg
deleted file: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2019-01/image2.jpg
deleted directory: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1/2019-01
deleted directory: /home/fyrye/test/images/user1