Delete file using PHP code : unlink()

To delete a file or files using PHP code you can use the unlink() method.

Syntax : bool unlink ( string $fileName [, resource $context ] )

It returns a boolean TRUE if the file is deleted successfully and FALSE if it failed to delete it. The resource part is option, it was added in PHP version 5.

Let's see some examples : 1. Delete a single file using unlink()

<?php 

    $fileName = "some-file.txt";

    $filePath = "file/path/if/any/";

     //delete the file
    unlink($fileName.$filePath);


?>

2. Delete all text files in a directory using unlink()

<?php 

    $filePath = "file/path/if/any/";

   foreach (glob($filePath."*.*")) as $fileName) {
     //*.txt is a wild card will delete all text files contained in the directory location specified.
     unlink($fileName");
     echo $fileName." was deleted!";
 }


?>

3. Delete all files in a directory using unlink()

<?php 

    $filePath = "file/path/if/any/";
    
    foreach (glob($filePath."*.*")) as $fileName) {
     //*.* is a wildcard that will delete all files contained in the directory location specified.
    unlink($fileName);
    echo $fileName." was deleted!";
 }


?>

4. Delete all text files in a directory using an easy way!

<?php 

   $filePath = "file/path/if/any/";
   $wildcard = "*.png"

   //will delete all png files
   array_map( "unlink", glob( $filePath.$wildcard ));
?>

Note :

unlink was added to PHP in version 4, hence it will not work with previous versions.

If you get a warning like Warning: unlink(uploaded_images/pdf.png): Permission denied in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/c2c/temp.php on line 7 , then its because you do not have permissions to either

access this file or the directory.

Its always good to get the boolean value returned by unlink method to check success or failure in deleting the files.