MAC hidden system files

Question

While looping through a directory for images using this php code, I need to filter out the system files that my MAC dev computer insists on creating.

First I only had to filter out

.DS_Store

files, lately there has appeared files looking like this as well:

._.DS_Store


    if ($handle = opendir($server_dir)) { //if we could open the directory...
        while (false !== ($entry = readdir($handle))) { //then loop through it...
            if ( ($entry != ".") && ($entry != "..") && (strpos($entry, ".DS_Store") !== false) && (strpos($entry, "._.DS_Store") !== false) ) { //and skip the . and .. entities
                $m .= '
                '.$client_dir.$entry.'
                ';
            }            
        }
        closedir($handle);      
    }
    else {
        echo("Can't open $dir, does it exist? Does www-user have permission to read it?");
    }

Is there any other name of hidden system files that I need to filter out or are these two it?

Is there any better way of handling this than the way I do it?

Also see this question and answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8532569/exclude-hidden-files-from-scandir-php — Paul Bissex, Feb 14 '14 at 19:59

CodeBird · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-14T20:14:19.050

1

You can replace this:

 (strpos($entry, ".DS_Store") !== false) && (strpos($entry, "._.DS_Store") !== false)

by this:

 !stristr($entry, '.DS_Store')

and there is .localized, seen it some places. As @deceze said, unix systems are full of . configuration files, it all depends on the directory you're working on.

Or even better you can replace all your if statement by:

if(substr($entry, 0, 1)!='.')

edited Feb 14 '14 at 20:14

answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:20

CodeBird

3,883
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deceze · Answer 2 · 2014-02-14T19:44:25.433

1

"Dot files", files starting with a dot, are a long standing convention of UNIX systems for "hidden" files. There are tons of them created by all sorts of programs. Go to the Terminal and play around with ls -a. The convention is to be aware of them and ignore them unless you know what you're doing. So, ignore all files starting with a ..

edited Feb 14 '14 at 19:44

answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:29

deceze

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:24

0

There can be tons of different hidden files, such as .svn, .git, as well as your examples above try this ... it checks to see if the first character is a .

if($entry[0] != '.'){
   // do something as its not a hidden file
}

answered Feb 14 '14 at 19:24

cmorrissey

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MAC hidden system files

3 Answers3