PHP 8.3.4 Released!

chdir

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

chdirChange directory

Description

chdir(string $directory): bool

Changes PHP's current directory to directory.

Parameters

directory

The new current directory

Return Values

Returns true on success or false on failure.

Errors/Exceptions

Throws an error of level E_WARNING on failure.

Examples

Example #1 chdir() example

<?php

// current directory
echo getcwd() . "\n";

chdir('public_html');

// current directory
echo getcwd() . "\n";

?>

The above example will output something similar to:

/home/vincent
/home/vincent/public_html

Notes

Caution

If the PHP interpreter has been built with ZTS (Zend Thread Safety) enabled, any changes to the current directory made through chdir() will be invisible to the operating system. All built-in PHP functions will still respect the change in current directory; but external library functions called using FFI will not. You can tell whether your copy of PHP was built with ZTS enabled using php -i or the built-in constant PHP_ZTS.

See Also

  • getcwd() - Gets the current working directory

add a note

User Contributed Notes 3 notes

up
9
nesk at xakep dot ru
3 years ago
When working with FFI under a PHP ZTS environment, there is no standard way to change the directory with libraries (dll/so/dylib/etc), so to get around this problem, you should use something like this polyfill:

<?php

$directory
= 'path/to/libraries';

switch (
\PHP_OS_FAMILY) {
case
'Windows':
\FFI::cdef('extern unsigned char SetDllDirectoryA(const char* lpPathName);', 'kernel32.dll')
->
SetDllDirectoryA($directory)
;
break;

case
'Linux':
case
'BSD':
\FFI::cdef('int setenv(const char *name, const char *value, int overwrite);')
->
setenv('LD_LIBRARY_PATH', $directory, 1)
;
break;

case
'Darwin':
\FFI::cdef('int setenv(const char *name, const char *value, int overwrite);')
->
setenv('DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH', $directory, 1)
;
break;
}

?>
up
-14
php dot duke at qik dot nl
15 years ago
When changing dir's under windows environments:

<?php
$path
="c:\temp"';
chdir($path);
/* getcwd() gives you back "c:\temp" */

$path="c:\temp\"'
;
chdir($path);
/* getcwd() gives you back "c:\temp\" */
?>

to work around this inconsistency
doing a chdir('.') after the chdir always gives back "c:\temp"
up
-30
herwin at snt dot utwente dot nl
17 years ago
When using PHP safe mode and trying to change to a dir that is not accessible due to the safe mode restrictions, the function simply fails without generating any kind of error message.

(Tested in PHP 4.3.10-16, Debian Sarge default)
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