PHP FileHelper

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Contents

• Purpose
• Code Docs
• Relative Path
• Validating Items
• Loading Files
• Getting Folder Contents
• Creating Folders
• Writing to Files

Purpose

The FileHelper class provides an easy way of accessing files and folders using a relative path.

Code Docs

Automatically generated documentation for FileHelper is available here:

http://n2framework.com/phpDoc/v2.0.1/classes/N2f.FileHelper.html

Relative Path

The main component of the FileHelper class is making it easier to work with files when using a relative path. Instead of having to copy the relative path around in a constant or variable, you can now simply use the ~ character in your file paths.

require('../inc/myfile.php'); // relative path depends on request entry file, must be maintained

$Fh = new \N2f\FileHelper('../');
$Fh->Load("~/inc/myfile.php"); // relative path is based on what FileHelper is created with, managed for you

If a FileHelper class is instantiated without providing an explicit value for the relative directory, the class will attempt to fallback onto './' as the default value.

If no ~ is provided in the path for any argument to a method, the relative path will not be substituted.

Finally, if at any point you should need to know what the relative path is set as for a given FileHelper, simply call the GetRelDir() method.

Validating Items

The class provides ways of validating that both files and folders exist:

if ($Fh->FileExists("~/inc/myfile.php")) {
	// executes if the ../inc/myfile.php file exists
}

if (!$Fh->FolderExists("~/inc/")) {
	// executes if the ../inc/ folder doesn't exist
}

Loading Files

There are two methods available for loading files. One will simply load the file as if you were doing a require() call, while the other will retrieve a file's contents.

// Load the file, similar to require but with relative path translation
$Fh->Load("~/inc/myfile.php");

// Get the file contents, similar to file_get_contents but with relative path translation
$Fh->GetContents("~/inc/myfile.php");

Getting Folder Contents

Three methods on FileHelper are devoted to retrieving the list of items inside a directory.

// Use GetFolderFiles to retrieve a list of all files in a directory (cannot be recursive)
$Files = $Fh->GetFolderFiles("~/inc/");

// Use GetFolderFolders to retrieve a list of all folders in a directory (can be recursive)
$Folders = $Fh->GetFolderFolders("~/");

// Use GetFolderItems to retrieve a list of all items in a directory (can be recursive)
$Items = $Fh->GetFolderItems("~/", true);

Creating Folders

Creating folders can also be done using a relative path:

$Fh->MakeFolder("~/temp/");

Writing to Files

And finally, writing to (and creating) files can be done using a relative path:

$Fh->PutContents("~/temp/site_is_offline.txt", "true");