How to Copy a file from one directory to another using PHP

In this tutorial, you will learn how to copy a file from one directory to another using PHP.

How to Copy a file from one directory to another using PHP?

Here are examples:

Step 1: Create two directories
Step 2: Create a file to copy
Step 3: Copy the file
Step 4: Verify the copied file
Example: PHP code for copying a file from one directory to another
Example: php copy multiple files from one directory to another

Step 1: Create two directories

To copy a file from one directory to another, you first need to create two directories, the source directory from where the file needs to be copied, and the destination directory where the file will be copied.

Here is php built-in function of create directories:

mkdir('source_directory');
mkdir('destination_directory');

Step 2: Create a file to copy

Create a file in the source directory that you want to copy. You can create a file using the file_put_contents() function in PHP.

Here is php built-in function of copy file:

$file_content = "This is a sample file.";
$file_path = "source_directory/sample_file.txt";
file_put_contents($file_path, $file_content);

Step 3: Copy the file

After creating the source directory, destination directory, and file, you can now copy the file from the source directory to the destination directory using the copy() function in PHP.

Here is php built-in function of copy file:

$source_file_path = "source_directory/sample_file.txt";
$destination_file_path = "destination_directory/sample_file.txt";
copy($source_file_path, $destination_file_path);

Step 4: Verify the copied file

To verify that the file has been successfully copied to the destination directory, you can use the file_exists() function in PHP.

Example:

if(file_exists($destination_file_path)) {
  echo "File copied successfully.";
} else {
  echo "Failed to copy file.";
}

Example: PHP code for copying a file from one directory to another

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the PHP code for copying a file from one directory to another. You will be using the copy() function, which is built-in to PHP and allows you to copy a file from one location to another.

$source = '/path/to/source/file.ext';
$destination = '/path/to/destination/file.ext';

if (copy($source, $destination)) {
    echo "File copied successfully.";
} else {
    echo "Failed to copy file.";
}

Example: php copy multiple files from one directory to another

To copy multiple files from one directory to another using the copy() function in PHP, we need to loop through each file in the source directory and copy them one by one to the destination directory. Here’s an example code that demonstrates how to do this:

$source_dir = '/path/to/source/directory';
$destination_dir = '/path/to/destination/directory';

foreach (glob($source_dir . '/*') as $file) {
    $destination_file = $destination_dir . '/' . basename($file);
    if (copy($file, $destination_file)) {
        echo "File {$file} copied successfully to {$destination_file}.\n";
    } else {
        echo "Failed to copy file {$file}.\n";
    }
}

Conclusion

Copying files from one directory to another is an important task in web development. In this article, you have learned how to copy a file from one directory to another using PHP. You used the mkdir() function to create two directories, file_put_contents() function to create a file, and copy() function to copy the file from the source directory to the destination directory. You also used the file_exists() function to verify that the file has been successfully copied to the destination directory.

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