Help with rename() function

[Frankie House]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone can help me with this, I'm trying to make a website duplication application, where i store a website on my server and when someone fills in a form, it will copy the website and move it to a different folder on the server. I used the rename () function like this.

<?php
   $source = "original";
   $destination = "new";
                 
   if (rename($source, $destination)) {
      echo "Your Website Was Created.", "\n";
   } else {
      echo "Sorry, Your Website Was Not Created. Please try again.", "\n";
   }
?>

and that works fine except i only end up with the folder "new", is there anyway to keep the original folder as well?

Thanks In advance

[JasonDFR]

Unfortunately I don't think it is as simple as calling rename on a whole directory. You need to copy each file one at a time and create new directories as needed.

I had some permission problems while working this function out on my local machine. You probably won't have any on your webhost's server, but locally you'll need to make sure the orig directory and the directory that is going to receive the copy has read/write access.

I think there is some room for improvement in this function and I hope Daniel or Twey will comment on it. The elseif before the recursive call doesn't seem right to me for some reason, but I am not sure.

Daniel, Twey, Nile, TechieTim, please comment. Making this work is a learning experience for me too.

function copy_dir($dir, $copyto) {

    rtrim($dir, '/');
    rtrim($copyto, '/');

    // If original doesn't exist, or destination does exist
    // trigger errors
    if ( !is_dir($dir) || is_dir($copyto) ) {
        trigger_error("Original doesn't exist or the directory you wish to create does exist",
         E_USER_ERROR);
        exit;
    }

    if ( !mkdir($copyto) ) {
        trigger_error('Cannot create new directory: ' . $copyto, E_USER_ERROR);
        exit;
    }

    $contents = scandir($dir);

    for ( $x = 0; $x < count($contents); $x++) {

        if ( $contents[$x] != '.' && $contents[$x] != '..' ) {

            if ( is_file("$dir/$contents[$x]") ) {

                copy("$dir/$contents[$x]", "$copyto/$contents[$x]");
            
            // Something about testing for the $copyto directory here doesn't seem right
            // But if you don't, you'll create an endless loop and continue to copy files
            // FOREVER!    
            } elseif ( is_dir("$dir/$contents[$x]") && "$dir/$contents[$x]" != $copyto ) {
                
                // Recursive call here
                copy_dir("$dir/$contents[$x]", "$copyto/$contents[$x]");

            }

        }

    }

}

copy_dir('/path_to_orig', '/path_to_new');

exit; 

[techietim]

Daniel, Twey, Nile, TechieTim, please comment.

The only thing I would change is I'd replace the for statement with a foreach statement. I'd then, before the foreach, unset $contents array item's 0 and 1, allowing me to remove the if statement that checks to see if it's a . or ..

I also didn't see the need for the endless loop protection, so I removed it.

function copy_dir($dir, $copyto) {
    rtrim($dir, '/');
    rtrim($copyto, '/');
    if ( !is_dir($dir) || is_dir($copyto) ) {
        trigger_error("Original doesn't exist or the directory you wish to create does exist",
         E_USER_ERROR);
        exit;
    }
    if ( !mkdir($copyto) ) {
        trigger_error('Cannot create new directory: ' . $copyto, E_USER_ERROR);
        exit;
    }
    $contents = scandir($dir);
    unset($contents[0], $contents[1]);
    foreach ($contents as $item) {
            if ( is_file("$dir/$item") ) {
                copy("$dir/$item", "$copyto/$item");
            } elseif ( is_dir("$dir/$item") ) {
                copy_dir("$dir/$item", "$copyto/$item");
            }
    }
} 

[JasonDFR]

Cool. I like the unset the first two indexes. They will always be the first two?

And it actually did start out as a foreach, but I changed it for some reason before I was finished when I started having trouble with the endless loop.

Your version works great. I am going to have to look at mine closer and figure out exactly where I was running into trouble. You see anything?

Thanks.

[Frankie House]

Thanks alot guys that seemed to work great, I get an error

Fatal error: Original doesn't exist or the directory you wish to create does exist in /home/gudic/public_html/copy.php on line 7

but it seems to of copied the folder fine, thanks for your help

[JasonDFR]

I realized why I was having trouble. Although the endless loop does not occur, you do end up with an extra folder when you copy into a folder inside the same directory you are copying from. I was initially doing this so I only had to change permissions on one folder.

Try copy_dir('/home/user/directory', '/home/user/directory/copy'); (Tim's version) See if you experience the creation of an extra "copyto" folder.

Also, will this function work as is on a non *nix machine? Thinking about the directory separators...

[techietim]

I made mine on up on Windows and it worked fine.

As far as the . and .. being the first array item, they usually are, but it sorts the files by what their ASCII value is, so a file named - would be before the periods.

Also, if you're copying a folder like /, it wouldn't have a parent directory, so .. wouldn't come up.

A quick fix would be just to add back in the checking for . and .., remove the unset, but still keep the foreach loop.

[JasonDFR]

What about using your version to create a copy of the folder inside the same directory you are copying from?

Give this a shot with your version Tim and tell me what you experience:

copy_dir('/home/user/directory', '/home/user/directory/copy');

I'm going to work on this again later. I want to try using opendir() .

[Frankie House]

I was actually just calling the function like this

copy_dir('original', 'copy');

exit;

as the folders are being created on the same level, would you say to do it with the full path like that
('/home/user/directory/original', '/home/user/directory/copy')?

[techietim]

@jason

I'm not sure about *nix, but on Windows it gives an error if you try to copy a (1)folder to a (2)folder that is inside of the (1)folder.

EDIT:
Not doing this inside of PHP, but using Windows explorer.