PHP rmdir() Function: Deleting Directories

The rmdir() function in PHP attempts to delete the directory specified by $dirname ; the directory must be empty and the script must have the necessary permissions. On success it returns TRUE , otherwise FALSE and triggers an E_WARNING error.

Parameters

string $dirname – Path of the directory to be removed.

resource $context – Optional context resource for stream operations.

Return value

Returns TRUE on success, FALSE on failure.

Example 1

<?php
if (!is_dir('examples')) {
    mkdir('examples');
}
 rmdir('examples');
?>

This example creates a directory named examples and then removes it using rmdir() .

Example 2

<?php
if (PHP_OS === 'Windows') {
    exec(sprintf('rd /s /q %s', escapeshellarg($path)));
} else {
    exec(sprintf('rm -rf %s', escapeshellarg($path)));
}
?>

The second example demonstrates a cross‑platform approach: on Windows it runs rd /s /q , while on Unix‑like systems it uses rm -rf to delete the directory.