Recursively delete a directory and all of it's contents - USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

rm_r.php

<?php

use RecursiveDirectoryIterator;
use RecursiveIteratorIterator;
use SplFileInfo;

# http://stackoverflow.com/a/3352564/283851

/**
 * Recursively delete a directory and all of it's contents - e.g.the equivalent of `rm -r` on the command-line.
 * Consistent with `rmdir()` and `unlink()`, an E_WARNING level error will be generated on failure.
 *
 * @param string $dir absolute path to directory to delete
 *
 * @return bool true on success; false on failure
 */
function rm_r($dir)
{
    if (false === file_exists($dir)) {
        return false;
    }
    
    /** @var SplFileInfo[] $files */
    $files = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
        new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($dir, RecursiveDirectoryIterator::SKIP_DOTS),
        RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST
    );

    foreach ($files as $fileinfo) {
        if ($fileinfo->isDir()) {
            if (false === rmdir($fileinfo->getRealPath())) {
                return false;
            }
        } else {
            if (false === unlink($fileinfo->getRealPath())) {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }

    return rmdir($dir);
}

Thanks for this.

Thanks for sharing but man that's an ugly code repetition and there's a bug in the way you use file_exists (should be is_dir otherwise your code will try to scan a file and then try to rmdir a file at the end, both of which bug out), and it also prints ugly errors on failures... This is mine:

    /**
     * Recursively deletes a directory tree.
     *
     * @param string $folder         The directory path.
     * @param bool   $keepRootFolder Whether to keep the top-level folder.
     *
     * @return bool TRUE on success, otherwise FALSE.
     */
    function deleteTree(
        $folder,
        $keepRootFolder = false)
    {
        // Handle bad arguments.
        if (empty($folder) || !file_exists($folder)) {
            return true; // No such file/folder exists.
        } elseif (is_file($folder) || is_link($folder)) {
            return @unlink($folder); // Delete file/link.
        }

        // Delete all children.
        $files = new \RecursiveIteratorIterator(
            new \RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder, \RecursiveDirectoryIterator::SKIP_DOTS),
            \RecursiveIteratorIterator::CHILD_FIRST
        );

        foreach ($files as $fileinfo) {
            $action = ($fileinfo->isDir() ? 'rmdir' : 'unlink');
            if (!@$action($fileinfo->getRealPath())) {
                return false; // Abort due to the failure.
            }
        }

        // Delete the root folder itself?
        return (!$keepRootFolder ? @rmdir($folder) : true);
    }