Location

The location is the only mandatory criteria. It tells the finder which directory to use for the search:

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$finder->in(__DIR__);

Search in several locations by chaining calls to in():

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// search inside *both* directories
$finder->files()->in(array(__DIR__, '/elsewhere'));

// same as above
$finder->in(__DIR__)->in('/elsewhere');

Use wildcard characters to search in the directories matching a pattern:

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$finder->in('src/Symfony/*/*/Resources');

Each pattern has to resolve to at least one directory path.

Exclude directories from matching with the exclude() method:

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$finder->in(__DIR__)->exclude('ruby');

It's also possible to ignore directories that you don't have permission to read:

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$finder->ignoreUnreadableDirs()->in(__DIR__);

As the Finder uses PHP iterators, you can pass any URL with a supported protocol:

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$finder->in('ftp://example.com/pub/');

And it also works with user-defined streams:

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use Symfony\Component\Finder\Finder;

$s3 = new \Zend_Service_Amazon_S3($key, $secret);
$s3->registerStreamWrapper('s3');

$finder = new Finder();
$finder->name('photos*')->size('< 100K')->date('since 1 hour ago');
foreach ($finder->in('s3://bucket-name') as $file) {
    // ... do something with the file
}

Files or Directories

By default, the Finder returns files and directories; but the files() and directories() methods control that:

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$finder->files();

$finder->directories();

If you want to follow links, use the followLinks() method:

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$finder->files()->followLinks();

By default, the iterator ignores popular VCS files. This can be changed with the ignoreVCS() method:

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$finder->ignoreVCS(false);

Sorting

Sort the result by name or by type (directories first, then files):

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$finder->sortByName();

$finder->sortByType();

You can also define your own sorting algorithm with sort() method:

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$sort = function (\SplFileInfo $a, \SplFileInfo $b)
{
    return strcmp($a->getRealPath(), $b->getRealPath());
};

$finder->sort($sort);

File Name

Restrict files by name with the name() method:

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$finder->files()->name('*.php');

The name() method accepts globs, strings, or regexes:

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$finder->files()->name('/\.php$/');

The notName() method excludes files matching a pattern:

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$finder->files()->notName('*.rb');

File Contents

Restrict files by contents with the contains() method:

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$finder->files()->contains('lorem ipsum');

The contains() method accepts strings or regexes:

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$finder->files()->contains('/lorem\s+ipsum$/i');

The notContains() method excludes files containing given pattern:

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$finder->files()->notContains('dolor sit amet');

Path

Restrict files and directories by path with the path() method:

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// matches files that contain "data" anywhere in their paths (files or directories)
$finder->path('data');
// for example this will match data/*.xml and data.xml if they exist
$finder->path('data')->name('*.xml');

On all platforms slash (i.e. /) should be used as the directory separator.

The path() method accepts a string or a regular expression:

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$finder->path('foo/bar');
$finder->path('/^foo\/bar/');

Internally, strings are converted into regular expressions by escaping slashes and adding delimiters:

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dirname    ===>    /dirname/
a/b/c      ===>    /a\/b\/c/

The notPath() method excludes files by path:

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$finder->notPath('other/dir');

File Size

Restrict files by size with the size() method:

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$finder->files()->size('< 1.5K');

Restrict by a size range by chaining calls:

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$finder->files()->size('>= 1K')->size('<= 2K');

The comparison operator can be any of the following: >, >=, <, <=, ==, !=.

The target value may use magnitudes of kilobytes (k, ki), megabytes (m, mi), or gigabytes (g, gi). Those suffixed with an i use the appropriate 2**n version in accordance with the IEC standard.

File Date

Restrict files by last modified dates with the date() method:

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$finder->date('since yesterday');

The comparison operator can be any of the following: >, >=, <, <=, ==. You can also use since or after as an alias for >, and until or before as an alias for <.

The target value can be any date supported by the strtotime function.

Directory Depth

By default, the Finder recursively traverse directories. Restrict the depth of traversing with depth():

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$finder->depth('== 0');
$finder->depth('< 3');

Custom Filtering

To restrict the matching file with your own strategy, use filter():

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$filter = function (\SplFileInfo $file)
{
    if (strlen($file) > 10) {
        return false;
    }
};

$finder->files()->filter($filter);

The filter() method takes a Closure as an argument. For each matching file, it is called with the file as a SplFileInfo instance. The file is excluded from the result set if the Closure returns false.

Reading Contents of Returned Files

The contents of returned files can be read with getContents():

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use Symfony\Component\Finder\Finder;

$finder = new Finder();
$finder->files()->in(__DIR__);

foreach ($finder as $file) {
    $contents = $file->getContents();

    // ...
}