You can make a script delete itself with ftp_delete!
It's pretty useful when creating an install script which you want to destroy at the end of the installation to prevent it from being run later.
On Linux machines, very often the user uploads third party scripts, and gets asked to CHMOD this and delete that manually because the webserver user is different from the FTP user ; make them enter their FTP info and get rid of the tedious file manipulation step!
Be careful, though. You will need to flush the output buffer and call ftp_delete at the end of the script, or else the script will die before it fully executes. Look up ob_end_flush for more info.
ftp_delete
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
ftp_delete — Deletes a file on the FTP server
Description
ftp_delete() deletes the file specified by
filename from the FTP server.
Return Values
Returns true on success or false on failure.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 8.1.0 |
The ftp parameter expects an FTP\Connection
instance now; previously, a resource was expected.
|
Examples
Example #1 ftp_delete() example
<?php
$file = 'public_html/old.txt';
// set up basic connection
$ftp = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($ftp, $ftp_user_name, $ftp_user_pass);
// try to delete $file
if (ftp_delete($ftp, $file)) {
echo "$file deleted successful\n";
} else {
echo "could not delete $file\n";
}
// close the connection
ftp_close($ftp);
?>
add a note
User Contributed Notes 4 notes
webmaster at iamsowonderful dot com ¶
19 years ago
engrumair_sabir at yahoo dot com ¶
10 years ago
if you want to upload the file on server and thn do delete it.. this script works well
<?php
// connect and login data
$web = '111.111.111.111';
$user = '123abc';
$pass = 'abc123';
// file location
$server_file = '/public_html/upload/test.csv';
$local_file = 'test.csv';
//connect
$conn_id = ftp_connect($web);
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id,$user,$pass);
//uploading
if (ftp_put($conn_id, $server_file, $local_file, FTP_BINARY))
{echo "Success \n";}
else {echo "Failed";}
// try to delete $file
if (ftp_delete($conn_id, $server_file)) {
echo "$server_file deleted successful\n";
} else {
echo "could not delete $server_file\n";
}
// close the connection
ftp_close($conn_id);
?>
kanhaiya4it at gmail dot com ¶
10 years ago
This works perfectly!
<?php
$file = 'public_html/plentyport.com/jobs/employee/resumes/4216:54:38Resume (1).docx';
$ftp_server="your server address";
// set up basic connection
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);
$ftp_user_name="your user server name";
$ftp_user_pass="your server password";
// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user_name, $ftp_user_pass);
// try to delete $file
if (ftp_delete($conn_id, $file)) {
echo "$file deleted successful\n";
} else {
echo "could not delete $file\n";
}
// close the connection
ftp_close($conn_id);
?>
Jim Greene ¶
11 years ago
Generally speaking, unlink will work just fine for most applications, however, if you are using multiple servers, you're going to have to connect to the other server using FTP.
