Question

I have a php file which has the following path

Shubhmangalam/admin/welcome_image_edition/delete_image.php

and an image file with the following path

Shubhmangalam/welcome_images/image_1.jpg

I want to delete the image_1.jpg file which I know can be done by using unlink() method..
but the prob is that the parent folder of the .php file and .jpg file is different, and so is their level of file-system…and I cant find the proper way to get the path to delete the image_1.jpg file.

Now the code on the delete_image.php is accordingly

<?php
$image=$_REQUEST['image'];
if(unlink("./../welcome_images/".$image))
   echo "Successfully Deleted";
else 
   echo "Wrong";
?>   

Now the above is server-scripting code, I want to delete the image by getting appropriate path.. I dont want the actual path, but the path from the project folder that is Shubhmangalam

thanks in advance

Answer 1

Be VERY careful with this type of code. You’re not filtering the $_REQUEST value AT ALL, which allows a malicious user to specify ANY file on your server, e.g:

http://example.com/delete_image.php?image=../../../../../../../../../etc/passwd

You can fix your pathing problem by using an absolute path:

unlink('/path/leading/to/your/welcome_images/' . $image);

which relives you of the burden of having to figure out the appropriate relative path.