Question

Trying to make a dropdown list, displaying files from a specific folder, with a Delete button to delete the file selected.

Dropdown list:

<?php
    $dirname = "files";
    $dir = opendir($dirname);
    echo '<form action="delete.php" method="get">';
    echo '<select name="file2">';
    while(false != ($file = readdir($dir)))
    {
        if(($file != ".") and ($file != ".."))
        {
            echo "<option value=".$file.">$file</option>";
        }
    }
    echo '</select>';
    echo '<input type="submit" value="Delete" class="submit" />';
    echo '</form>';
?>

the delete.php file:

<?php
    $dirpath = "files";
    $file_to_delete = $_POST['file2'];
    if ( unlink ($dirpath.'/'.$file_to_delete) ) {
        echo $file_to_delete . " deleted.";
    } else {
        echo "Error.";
    }
?>

When I then try to selected a file and press delete, I get the following error:

Warning: unlink(files/): Is a directory in
/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx/xxx/delete.php on
line 4 Error.

xxx’ed out due to privacy 🙂 all the files trying to be deleted are chmod 777.
its a simply .txt file I’m trying to delete.

Not sure what I’m missing or what I did wrong here… :/

Answer 1

It’s $_GET, because your form has method="get":

$file_to_delete = $_GET['file2'];

so:

<?php
    $dirpath = "files";
    $file_to_delete = $_GET['file2'];
    if ( unlink ($dirpath.'/'.$file_to_delete) ) {
        echo $file_to_delete . " deleted.";
    } else {
        echo "Error.";
    }
?>

If you want post change your form to method="post".