Question

I use the following function to get all the images from a dir, but instead of putting all the images in the $files array, I would like to tweak it, so it only takes the images uploaded between 15:00:00 and 15:59:59 – today.

 function get_files($images_dir,$exts = array('jpg')) {
      $files = array();
      if($handle = opendir($images_dir)) { 
        while(false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
          $extension = strtolower(get_file_extension($file));
          if($extension && in_array($extension,$exts)) {
            $files[] = $file;
          }
        }
        closedir($handle);
      }
      return $files;
    }

But I can’t figure out how to do it, and even less how to do it efficient since the folder has around 9000 images. Anyone can point me in the right direction?

Note: All the images are named like this “Snapshot-20110910-103242.jpg” with date-time.

Answer 1

function get_files ($images_dir, $exts = array('jpg'), $start = '15:00:00', $end = '15:59:59', $usemtime = FALSE) {

    /**
    * str  $images_dir - Path to images directory
    * arr  $exts       - Permitted file extensions
    * str  $start      - Start time (H:i:s)
    * str  $end        - End time (H:i:s)
    * bool $usemtime   - Use file modified time instead of file created time
    */

    // Replace \ with / and strip trailing slashes so we can easily create a valid file path
    $images_dir = rtrim(str_replace('\\','/',$images_dir),'/');

    // Get start/end times
    $starttime = strtotime($start);
    $endtime = strtotime($end);

    // Array to hold the results
    $files = array();

    // Open the directory and loop it
    if ($handle = opendir($images_dir)) { 

        while (($file = readdir($handle)) !== FALSE) {

            // Get this file's extension and created/modified time
            $extension = strtolower(get_file_extension($file));
            $filetime = ($usemtime) ? filemtime("$images_dir/$file") : filectime("$images_dir/$file");

            // Check the file's extension and created or modified time
            // I have removed the first $extension check because it is unnecessary)
            if (in_array($extension,$exts) && $filetime >= $starttime && $filetime <= $endtime) {
                $files[] = $file;
            }

        }

        // Close the directory
        closedir($handle);

    }

    // Return the list
    return $files;

}