How to get the newest file in a directory in php
directory, php
Solution
Here's an attempt using `scandir`, assuming the only files in the directory have timestamped filenames:
$files = scandir('data', SCANDIR_SORT_DESCENDING);
$newest_file = $files[0];
We first list all files in the directory in descending order, then, whichever one is first in that list has the "greatest" filename — and therefore the greatest timestamp value — and is therefore the newest.
Note that `scandir` was added in PHP 5, but its documentation page shows how to implement that behavior in PHP 4.
Problem
So I have this app that processes CSV files. I have a line of code to load the file. ``` $myFile = "data/FrontlineSMS_Message_Export_20120721.csv"; //The name of the CSV file $fh = fopen($myFile, 'r'); //Open the file ``` I would like to find a way in which I could look in the `data` directory and get the newest file (they all have date tags so they would be in order inside of `data`) and set the name equal to `$myFile`. I really couldn't find and understand the documentation of php directories so any helpful resources would be appreciated as well. Thank you.