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Last updated: Fri, 12 Mar 2010

mkdir

(PHP 4, PHP 5)

mkdir — Makes directory

Description

bool mkdir ( string $pathname [, int $mode = 0777 [, bool $recursive = false [, resource $context ]]] )

Attempts to create the directory specified by pathname.

Parameters

pathname

The directory path.

mode

The mode is 0777 by default, which means the widest possible access. For more information on modes, read the details on the chmod() page.

Note: mode is ignored on Windows.

Note that you probably want to specify the mode as an octal number, which means it should have a leading zero. The mode is also modified by the current umask, which you can change using umask().

recursive

Allows the creation of nested directories specified in the pathname . Defaults to FALSE.

context

Note: Context support was added with PHP 5.0.0. For a description of contexts, refer to Stream Functions.

Return Values

Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.

Changelog

Version Description
5.0.0 The recursive parameter was added
5.0.0 As of PHP 5.0.0 mkdir() can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a listing of which wrappers support mkdir()
4.2.0 The mode parameter became optional.

Examples

Example #1 mkdir() example

 <?php
mkdir("/path/to/my/dir", 0700);
?>

Example #2 mkdir() using the recursive parameter

 <?php
/* Desired folder structure */
$structure = './depth1/depth2/depth3/';

/* To create the nested structure, the $recursive parameter 
 * to mkdir() must be specified.
 */

if(!mkdir($structure, 0, true))
{
 die('Failed to create folders...');
}

/* ... */
?>

Notes

Note: When safe mode is enabled, PHP checks whether the directory in which the script is operating has the same UID (owner) as the script that is being executed.

See Also

rmdir() - Removes directory

move_uploaded_file

Last updated: Fri, 12 Mar 2010

add a note User Contributed Notes
mkdir

michael at neo dot co dot il
27-Jan-2010 03:39

 sometimes the directory created with another mode than specified ( 0755 instead 0777 etc). 
 to solve that use : 

<?php 
 $old = umask(0); 
mkdir($dir,0777); 
umask($old); 
?>

Brian S
11-Aug-2009 03:51

 The example from "hinom - iMasters" below is broken -- here's a version that works: 

<?php 

function handleError() { 
trigger_error('MY ERROR'); 

/** usage sample 
 @handleError(); 
 echo $php_errormsg; 
 */ 
} 

// detect slash/backslash nomenclature dirname 
$path = dirname( __FILE__ ); 
$slash = '/'; 

 (stristr( $path, $slash )) ? '' : $slash = '\\'; 
define( 'BASE_DIR', $path . $slash ); 

$folder = time(); // folder name 
$dirPath = BASE_DIR . $folder; // folder path 

 // print results 
echo $slash; 
 echo '<hr>'; 

$rs = @mkdir( $dirPath, 0777 ); 
 @handleError(); 
 if( $rs ) 
 { 

// print success information 
echo 'was done!'; 
 echo '<br>folder: <a href="' . $folder . '">' . $folder . '</a>'; 
 echo '<br>dirPath: ' . $dirPath; 

 }else{ 

// print error information 
echo 'an error was occurred. Attempting create folder'; 
 echo '<br>dirPath: ' . $dirPath; 
 echo '<br>php_errormsg: ' . $php_errormsg; 

 } 

?> 

 [EDIT by thiago AT php DOT net: This function has a fix from imran@curl.phptrack.com]

ethaizone at hotmail dot com
03-Aug-2009 08:10

 When I created folder on windows with mkdir, I found some problem from folder nam so I write this function. 

<?php 
function filename_safe($name) { 
$except = array('\\', '/', ':', '*', '?', '"', '<', '>', '|'); 
 return str_replace($except, '', $name); 
 } 
?> 

 It can use with another functions about file system as file_put_contents to clean up file name.

vlad at todosv dot com
05-Mar-2009 04:59

 Note that you should NOT enter the $mode value with "" or '' sorrounding it.

 So, this should be valid:
<?php mkdir("dir1/dir2",0777,true); ?>

 But this is not:
<?php mkdir("dir1/dir2","0777",true); ?>

 Nor this:
<?php mkdir("dir1/dir2",'0777',true); ?>

d dot kok at kadova dot nl
20-Feb-2009 08:02

 Please note that when specifying the recursive option the function returns false anyway if the directory already exists. 

 For some reason however I expected it to behave like `mkdir -p` on the command line which succeeds if the directory already exists.

t-k-r at o2 dot pl
17-Dec-2008 09:42

 Very simple script, may be useful to someone.
 Creating a directory structure liki this:

 0 ------ 0
 1 1
 2 2 -------- 0
 3 3 1
 4 ... 2
 5 3
 6 ...
 7
 [....]
 e
 f

 Used by my as structure to store uploaded files:
 someone upload file -> its name + microtime is md5 -> first 3 letters of md5 string are first 3 subfolders in this folder structure, and at least file is stroed with md5 name.
 Naturally SQL- or other type - Database is needed to store infos about files position in this structure.

<?php

for ($a=0;$a<=15;$a++) {

mkdir(dechex($a),0755);

 for ($b=0;$b<=15;$b++) {

mkdir(dechex($a).'/'.dechex($b),0755);

 for ($c=0;$c<=15;$c++) {

mkdir(dechex($a).'/'.dechex($b).'/'.dechex($c),0755);

 }

 }

 }

?>

hinom - iMasters
19-Sep-2008 05:56

 mkdir simple test with "exception handler"

<?php

function handleError() {
trigger_error('MY ERROR');

/** usage sample
 @handleError();
 echo $php_errormsg;
 */
}

// detect slash/backslash nomenclature dirname
$path = dirname( __FILE__ );
$slash = '/'; strpos( $path, $slash ) ? '' : $slash = '\\';
define( 'BASE_DIR', $path . $slash );

$folder = time(); // folder name
$dirPath = BASE_DIR . $folder; // folder path

 // print results
echo $slash;
 echo '<hr>';

$rs = @mkdir( $dirPath, '0777' );
 @handleError();
 if( $rs )
 {

// print success information
echo 'was done!';
 echo '<br>folder: <a href="' . $folder . '">' . $folder . '</a>';
 echo '<br>dirPath: ' . $dirPath;

 }else{

// print error information
echo 'an error was occurred. Attempting create folder';
 echo '<br>dirPath: ' . $dirPath;
 echo '<br>php_errormsg: ' . $php_errormsg;

 }

?>

php at mike2k dot com
15-Jul-2008 08:32

 It should be noted that all of the recursive mkdir functions coded below are no longer required - as of 5.0.0 it says the "recursive" flag is available. I just tested it, it properly works (and I would assume it works for streams and Windows as well, if not, then it would be a bug)

GelaMu at GMail dot com
18-May-2008 12:19

 <?php

/**
 * Makes directory and returns BOOL(TRUE) if exists OR made.
 *
 * @param $path Path name
 * @return bool
 */
function rmkdir($path, $mode = 0755) {
$path = rtrim(preg_replace(array("/\\\\/", "/\/{2,}/"), "/", $path), "/");
$e = explode("/", ltrim($path, "/"));
 if(substr($path, 0, 1) == "/") {
$e[0] = "/".$e[0];
 }
$c = count($e);
$cp = $e[0];
 for($i = 1; $i < $c; $i++) {
 if(!is_dir($cp) && !@mkdir($cp, $mode)) {
 return false;
 }
$cp .= "/".$e[$i];
 }
 return @mkdir($path, $mode);
 }

?>

php at msn dot net
08-Mar-2008 06:05

 <?php

/**
 * Makes directory, returns TRUE if exists or made
 *
 * @param string $pathname The directory path.
 * @return boolean returns TRUE if exists or made or FALSE on failure.
 */

function mkdir_recursive($pathname, $mode)
 {
is_dir(dirname($pathname)) || mkdir_recursive(dirname($pathname), $mode);
 return is_dir($pathname) || @mkdir($pathname, $mode);
 }

?>

code at ashleyhunt dot co dot uk
14-Feb-2008 07:15

 Here's a script to create a recursive directory path on NAS or another server using Common Internet File System (CIFS)

 e.g. you already have a directory on a server
 \\server/share/dir1/dir2

 you want to create some more directories
 \\server/share/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4

<?php
function remote_mkpath($server, $path) {
$dirs = array();
$path = preg_replace('/(\/){2,}|(\\\){1,}/','/',$path); //only forward-slash
$dirs = explode("/", $path);
$path = "\\\\" . $server . "/";
$i = 0;
 foreach ($dirs AS $element) {
$path .= $element . "/";
 if(!is_dir($path) && $i != 0) { 
 if(!mkdir($path)){ 
 echo "something was wrong at : " . $path; 
 return 0; 
 } 
 } 
$i++;
 }
 return true;
 echo $path;
 }

// example usage
remote_mkpath("SERVER", "share/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4");
?>

 Good luck!

 Ashley

david dot NOSPAM at ajnewmedia dot NOSPAM dot co dot uk
22-Jan-2008 05:04

 p-garcia : since PHP 5, setting the recursive flag (which currently has no notes in the manual entry) will allow you to create nested directories in the same way as Windows / Linux mkdir -p, so long as the webserver has permissions to write in the root directory of the path specified
 eg:

<?php
 mkdir ("./newdir1/newdir2/newdir3/", 0755, true);

// Returns TRUE if you have permission to write to the current directory 
 // and creates nested directories with permissionsrwxr-xr-x
?>

p-garcia at uniandes dot edu dot co
22-Jan-2008 01:45

 After a long time trying to catch the cause of the warning: "mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory", I finally realized that this function is not recursive; I mean, that if you want to create the folder -for example- c:\temp\t1\t2, you must do:
 mkdir("c:\\temp\\t1") ;
 mkdir("c:\\temp\\t1\\t2") ;

 because mkdir is not like the windows mkdir where you can acomplish this in one single step.

Michal Nazarewicz, mina86 at mina86 dot com
27-Aug-2007 02:34

 On the other hand, splitting path on something else then a DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR may give unexpected results when someone accualy wants a file name with backslash in it! Moreover, neither Alan's nor pluto's code check for errors or return any value. Also, I don't like the isset($folder[$i]) technique -- there is a count() function you know.

<?php
function recursive_mkdir($path, $mode = 0777) {
$dirs = explode(DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR , $path);
$count = count($dirs);
$path = '.';
 for ($i = 0; $i < $count; ++$i) {
$path .= DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $dirs[$i];
 if (!is_dir($path) && !mkdir($path, $mode)) {
 return false;
 }
 }
 return true;
 }
?>

 It will only fail if someone specifies a mode which does not allow owner to create new entries in directory.

kendsnyder at gmail dot com
04-May-2007 03:17

 When creating directories in Windows, trailing periods (".") are ignored. for example:

<?php

 mkdir('c:/Buck Jr.',0755); // on Windows creates "c:/Buck Jr"
mkdir('c:/Elipses...',0755); // on Windows creates "c:/Elipses"
mkdir('c:/php.com',0755); // on Windows creates "c:/php.com"

?>

 This is a Window's quirk, not a php shortcoming--meaning that you get the same results from a Window's command prompt.

glenn at bengeweb dot co dot nz
13-Mar-2007 05:00

 I've discovered that since my (shared) hosting provider upgraded to PHP 5.1.6 , a script containing this mkdir doesn't work:

<?php
 mkdir('/home/benge/photos/gallery1/extra_large/', 0777);
?>

 but this does work:
<?php
 mkdir('/home/benge/photos/gallery1/extra_large', 0777);
?>

 the difference being, the trailing slash "/" after "extra_large.

 There were three ways to fix the problem:
 1. remove the trailing slash from the script code
 2. downgrade to < PHP 5.1.6
 3. turn safe mode off

 I went with option 1.

sean at pedlr dot com
09-Mar-2007 04:58

 It should be noted that although the documentation says that the default permissions for mkdir are 0777, this is not always the case.

 I'm running LAMP and without explicitly setting the permissions, the directories created had permissions of 0755.

Ari Schulman (ario [] mail utexas edu)
08-Jan-2007 11:02

 Re: john 4t idserver d0t org, and djneoform at gmail dot com's posts from 27 Oct 2006:

 On Windows systems, several keywords are reserved and cannot be used as filenames, in addition to just CON and PRN. Attempting to create a folder with one of these names using mkdir will throw the unhelpful error "Invalid argument". According to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp ?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/naming_a_file.asp :

 "Do not use the following reserved device names for the name of a file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9. Also avoid these names followed by an extension, for example, NUL.tx7.

 Windows NT: CLOCK$ is also a reserved device name."

 These keywords are also case-insensitive. I don't know what problems are posed by using these keywords with extensions, but I successfully created a folder named "con_f".

fantasysportswire at yahoo dot com
21-Dec-2006 02:07

 One small correction on a note from Frank in June 2006 on recursive directories under Windows.

 First - this should be in the documentation as its the only function that I know of that php does not fix the slashes automatically.

 Franks note stated:

<?php
 $mypath="testdir\subdir\test";
mkdir($mypath,0777,TRUE);
?>

 This doesn't work in windows:

<?php
 $mypath="testdir/subdir/test";
mkdir($mypath,0777,TRUE);
?>

 ----

 This will work a bit better :)

<?php
 $mypath="testdir\\subdir\\test";
mkdir($mypath,0777,TRUE);
?>

v1d4l0k4 {at} gmail.com
13-Nov-2006 03:42

 The 'mkdir' function doesn't function correctly on Windows when the pathname contain space(s) on the final. PHP returns a warning, and the directory isn't created:

 Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: Invalid argument in X on line Y

 Temporary fix: use trim() on the pathname

 Besides, if the pathname contain space(s) on the start, the directory is created when couldn't even so (in accordance with the behavior of Windows Explorer).

 ~ v1d4l0k4

PHGN
13-Aug-2006 06:13

 I've been wrestling with mkdir on a server with safe mode turned on (I think, I kept getting barmy permissions on the new dirs). 

 In the end the solution was to use:
 exec (mkdir ...
 exec (chmod ...

 For this to work I had to use the setuid bit on the script itself. I tried this with the mkdir() function, but to no avail. (To do the setuid bit I ran chmod 4775 on the script file from the command line.)

kungla at gmail dot com
18-Jul-2006 12:41

 Somehow the recursive version of mkdir didn't work for me on Mac and the workaraounds listed below alsow didn't work for me, so heres my solution:

<?php
function mkdir_r($dirName, $rights=0777){
$dirs = explode('/', $dirName);
$dir='';
 foreach ($dirs as $part) {
$dir.=$part.'/';
 if (!is_dir($dir) && strlen($dir)>0)
mkdir($dir, $rights);
 }
 }
?>

 Tested and works ;)

jamespilcher1hotmail
08-Apr-2006 12:53

 one small gotcha:

 mkdir(""), mkdir(false), and mkdir(null) give a "file exists" error. this is also true of a directory name consisting of any string that only contains space characters.

 (this was on php 5.1.2 on Windows 2000)

bat at flurf dot net
22-Mar-2006 05:23

 A little understanding of LISPlike programming makes this sort of task (recursive mkdir()ing in PHP4) much simpler. This version works nicely:

<?php
function MakeDirectory($dir, $mode = 0755)
 {
 if (is_dir($dir) || @mkdir($dir,$mode)) return TRUE;
 if (!MakeDirectory(dirname($dir),$mode)) return FALSE;
 return @mkdir($dir,$mode);
 }
?>

 How it works: line one attempts to make the directory, and returns TRUE if it works or if it already exists. That's the easy case if the parent directories all exist.

 Line two trims off the last directory name using dirname(), and calls MakeDirectory recursively on that shorter directory. If that fails, it returns FALSE, but otherwise we come out of it knowing that the parent directory definitely exists.

 Finally, presuming the recursive call worked, once we get to line three we can create the requested directory.

 Note the use of @ to suppress warning messages from mkdir.

 The beauty of this is that if, say, the great-grandparent directory exists but the grandparent and parent directories don't, the function will simply call itself recursively until it gets high enough up the tree to do some work, then carry on unwinding back until all the new directories have been created.

 This is pretty bog-standard recursive programming. Anyone who can't wrap their head around it after a few minutes of concentration should probably try a career in sales.

Ali Baba
10-Mar-2006 09:26

 Greg, your code does not work for me; maybe it has a bug or we have configuration changes. Anyway, this one works to create recursively the directory DIRECTORY. 

 <?
 define ("DIRECTORY", "/tmp/mydir/mysubdir");

 do {
 $dir = DIRECTORY;
 while (!is_dir($dir)) {
 $basedir = dirname($dir);
 if ($basedir == '/' || is_dir($basedir))
 mkdir($dir,0777);
 else
 $dir=$basedir;
 }
 } while ($dir != DIRECTORY);

 ?>

18-Jan-2006 05:48

 function mkdirs($dir, $mode = 0777, $recursive = true) {
 if( is_null($dir) || $dir === "" ){
 return FALSE;
 }
 if( is_dir($dir) || $dir === "/" ){
 return TRUE;
 }
 if( mkdirs(dirname($dir), $mode, $recursive) ){
 return mkdir($dir, $mode);
 }
 return FALSE;
 }

Sean at seanj dot jcink dot com
24-Dec-2005 02:10

 Mkdir will work on parent directories as long as file permissions are right and the openbase restriction is not on.

 ~Sean

Kevin Cook
02-Nov-2005 05:14

 I could not get the sticky bit set properly using the octal mode: 2775 (rwxrwsr-x)

 $foo='my_directory';

 $old_umask = umask(0);
 mkdir($foo,2775);
 umask($old_umask);

 using the above lines renders a directory with permissions:

 d-wx-wSrwt 2 www www 4096 Nov 2 11:43 my_directory

 Not exactly what I was looking for.

 This gets closer to the mark:

 $foo='my_directory';

 $old_umask = umask(0);
 mkdir($foo,0777); // the default chmod
 umask($old_umask);

 drwxrwsrwx 2 www www 4096 Nov 2 11:46 my_directory

ephraim at coder-board dot info
11-Oct-2005 06:38

 When safe_mode is enabled, and you create a directory via mkdir, you can't create a second inside the first because the first folder's user is that one of the webserver and not that one of the script. This is dumb and very annoying :(

funke
16-Sep-2005 07:51

 Ive onlybeen coding in PHP for a couple of months so i Don't have all the syntax tricks down yet.

 I wrote this function to create all the dirs in a path if they don't exist. its not actually recursive but i was to lazy to change the name :)
 theoretically i want it to work for both win and nix. As soon my project manager gets me a win box i'm gonna test it out. anyrevisions to the function below would be appreciated.

<?php
// \

function recur_mkdirs($path, $mode = 0777) //creates directory tree recursively
{
//$GLOBALS["dirseparator"]
$dirs = explode($GLOBALS["dirseparator"],$path);
$pos = strrpos($path, ".");
 if ($pos === false) { // note: three equal signs
 // not found, means path ends in a dir not file
$subamount=0;
 }
 else {
$subamount=1;
 }

 for ($c=0;$c < count($dirs) - $subamount; $c++) {
$thispath="";
 for ($cc=0; $cc <= $c; $cc++) {
$thispath.=$dirs[$cc].$GLOBALS["dirseparator"];
 }
 if (!file_exists($thispath)) {
//print "$thispath<br>";
mkdir($thispath,$mode);
 }


 }

 }
?>

roth at egotec dot com
23-May-2005 06:43

 The 'mkdir' function doesn't function correctly on Windows when the path
 contains forward slashes. The part of the path with the forward slashes
 doesn't get created.

 mkdir('c:/a/b/c/d', 0775, true);

 You get the error message:
 Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory

 Please use backslashes under Windows or use the constant DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.

 mkdir('c:\a\b\c\d', 0775, true);
 mkdir('c:'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'a'.
 DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'b'.
 DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'c'.
 DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'d', 0775, true);

webmaster2007 at home dot nl
28-Apr-2005 03:27

 Maybe you can use this:

<?php
function open_dir($dir, $newdir){ //The function that will copy the files
if(file_exists($dir) && file_exists($newdir)){
$open_dir=opendir($dir);
 while (false !== ($file = readdir($open_dir))) {
 if($file != "." && $file != ".."){
 if(file_exists($newdir."/".$file) && filetype($newdir."/".$file."/") != "dir"){
unlink($newdir."/".$file);
 }
 if(filetype($dir."/".$file."/") == "dir"){
 if(!file_exists($newdir."/".$file."/")){
mkdir($newdir."/".$file."/");
open_dir($dir."/".$file."/", $newdir."/".$file."/");
 }
 }
 else {
copy($dir."/".$file."/", $newdir."/".$file);
 }
 }
 }
 }
 }


open_dir("Your source map", "Your destination map"); //Here you can fill in your source en destination map
?>

Protik Mukherjee
03-Mar-2005 05:29

 mkdir, file rw, permission related notes for Fedora 3////
 If you are using Fedora 3 and are facing permission problems, better check if SElinux is enabled on ur system. It add an additional layer of security and as a result PHP cant write to the folder eventhough it has 777 permissions. It took me almost a week to deal with this!

 If you are not sure google for SElinux or 'disabling SELinux' and it may be the cure! Best of luck!

28-Jun-2003 11:00

 You might notice that when you create a new directory using this code:

 mkdir($dir, 0777);

 The created folder actually has permissions of 0755, instead of the specified
 0777. Why is this you ask? Because of umask(): http://www.php.net/umask

 The default value of umask, at least on my setup, is 18. Which is 22 octal, or
 0022. This means that when you use mkdir() to CHMOD the created folder to 0777,
 PHP takes 0777 and substracts the current value of umask, in our case 0022, so
 the result is 0755 - which is not what you wanted, probably.

 The "fix" for this is simple, include this line:

 $old_umask = umask(0);

 Right before creating a folder with mkdir() to have the actual value you put be
 used as the CHMOD. If you would like to return umask to its original value when
 you're done, use this:

 umask($old_umask);

aulbach at unter dot franken dot de
22-Jul-1999 09:37

 This is an annotation from Stig Bakken: 

 The mode on your directory is affected by your current umask. It will end 
 up having (<mkdir-mode> and (not <umask>)). If you want to create one 
 that is publicly readable, do something like this: 

<?php 
 $oldumask = umask(0); 
mkdir('mydir', 0777); // or even 01777 so you get the sticky bit set 
umask($oldumask); 
?>

move_uploaded_file

Last updated: Fri, 12 Mar 2010

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