Create links on the fly

[Mondai]

Is it possible to build a list of links out of files in a directory?
Example:

I have a directory website\pages\
I want to build a list of links based on *.html in that directory
Each link name would be the name of an html file.

Can anoyone show me some sample code to do this?

Thanks

[NogDog]

You would need to use some sort of server-side programming, such as PHP or Perl CGI to do this. Which to use depends on what your web host provides and what you're comfortable working with.

[Mondai]

yep I can use php on my server, just don't know how to write the code for it.

[NogDog]

<?php
if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/files'))
{
echo "<ul>\n";
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
if(preg_match("/.+\\.html$/", $file) == 1)
{
echo "<li><a href='/path/to/files/$file'>$file</a></li>\n";
}
}
echo "</ul>\n";
closedir($handle);
}
else
{
echo "<p>ERROR: Could not open directory.</p>\n";
}
?>

[ray326]

Of course the server will do that for you automagically if indexing is allowed and you don't have an index.* file in that directory.

[Mondai]

Thank you so much NoDog! If I wanted to show the files with out the extenion (.html) , how would I do that?

[MstrBob]

<?php
$dir = "./";
if ($handle = opendir($dir))
{
echo "<ul>\n";
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
if(preg_match("/.+\.html$/", $file) == 1)
{
$filename = preg_replace("/\.html$/", "", $file);
echo "<li><a href='$dir$file'>$filename</a></li>\n";
}
}
echo "</ul>\n";
closedir($handle);
}
else
{
echo "<p>ERROR: Could not open directory.</p>\n";
}
?>

[NogDog]

Or...

<?php
if ($handle = opendir('/path/to/files'))
{
echo "<ul>\n";
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
if(preg_match("/(.+)\\.html$/", $file, $matches) == 1)
{
echo "<li><a href='/path/to/files/$file'>{$matches[1]}</a></li>\n";
}
}
echo "</ul>\n";
closedir($handle);
}
else
{
echo "<p>ERROR: Could not open directory.</p>\n";
}
?

[Mondai]

Thanks guys, it works like a champ! Couple more questions.

1. How can I display the number of files it found? Like %x% results found

2. How do I use parameter as a variable? Example, I want to call this php script from a link that will send the script a directory name to be used. I'll have like 10 links and this way I won't have to have 10 php scripts, i can just use one. is this possible?

[MstrBob]

Erm, something like:


<?php
$count=0;
if ($handle = opendir($_GET['dir']))
{
echo "<ul>\n";
while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
if(preg_match("/(.+)\.html$/", $file, $matches) == 1)
{
$count++;
echo "<li><a href=\"{$_GET['dir']}\">{$matches[1]}</a></li>\n";
}
}
echo "</ul>\n";
echo("<p>$count files found.</p>");
closedir($handle);
}
else
{
echo "<p>ERROR: Could not open directory.</p>\n";
}

?>


When you save this as a file, you can call it by
filename.php?dir=/dir/to/check
Keep in mind though, that you may want to check that the directory passed is from an array, or do some other form of validation so you can control what directories are being read.

[Mondai]

Sweet I got it to work. I am actually learning somthing. Many thanks! Does stuff like this hurt search engine results?

[the tree]

Search engines wouldn't even notice that it had been done.