[RESOLVED] Delete previously uploaded file from server?

[amandaNHT]

Ok, so I have a page where an authorized user can upload a file... there is also a list of uploaded files (each has info in the database) and a "delete" check-box to remove it... It removes the info from the database, but how do I remove the file itself from the "docs" folder on the server?

[NogDog]

unlink()

[amandaNHT]

I tried that, but it's not working. There's a "close file" thingy that gets put in before that tries to open the file and returns the error "can't open file" -- probably because the file is a PDF... should the file-type be causing a problem with the unlink() function?

Here's what I've got to delete the file:

    $delFile = "docs/".$rowfile;
    $fh = fopen($delFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
    fclose($fh);
    unlink($delFile); 

...and it just returns the "can't open file" error.

[NogDog]

Well, if it's dieing on that line, then the following lines never get executed. So you might want to add some debug code to find out why the fopen is failing.

$delFile = "docs/".$rowfile;
if( ! file_exists($delFile)) {
   die("Cannot find file '$delFile'");
}
if( ! is_writable($delFile)) {
   die("File '$delFile' is not writable");
}
ini_set('display_errors', true);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$fh = fopen($delFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fclose($fh);
unlink($delFile); 

[amandaNHT]

Error message:

Warning: fopen(docs/) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Is a directory in /home/mywebsite/public_html/sites/misc/testfolder/adm_docs.php on line 142
can't open file

[svidgen]

Sounds like $rowfile isn't defined ...

[amandaNHT]

Except that "$rowfile" is created just a few lines up from the filename from the database. It should work, but it doesn't. I'm going to try tweaking a couple of other things & then I'll get back to you guys. Thanks a ton for the help thus far.

[amandaNHT]

The script runs! Now i just have to fix the file-uploader to work properly so I can test this correctly!

Thanks!

The problem was this:

$delFile = "docs/".$rowfile;

The solution was this:

$delFile = "/docs/".$rowfile;