PHP windows create hidden files

Question

Is it possible to create hidden files/folders on windows using php (xampp)? And if it is, how?

Taco

In wWindows you can make files hidden so that they won't be visible by default to the users, only to the OS. – Taco

Answer 1

A file in Windows is hidden if it has the hidden attribute set on it. There is no built in function to do this, so you need to use system/exec to execute the attrib application. Like this:

$file = 'test.txt';
system('attrib +H ' . escapeshellarg($file));

This will set the hidden (+H) flag on test.txt.

Caritacaritas

Answer 2

You could call attrib:

$filename = 'c:\\some\\file.txt';
exec('attrib +h '.$filename);

Homestretch

Answer 3

// set HIDDEN attribute of file on Windows
$file = 'path/to/file.ext';
$file = str_replace('/', '\\', $file);
unset($res);
exec('attrib +H ' . escapeshellarg($file), $res);
$res = $res[0];
//$res contains result string of operation

Hints:
Replacing '/' with '\' is important as the shell command (attrib) is not as tolerant to slashes as PHP is.
$res is unset first because exec() appends to any existing value.

If you are looking for a way to set a file to read-only that will work on Windows AND *nix, then have a look at my answer to this other question: https://mcmap.net/q/1770119/-is-there-a-way-to-toggle-the-quot-hidden-quot-or-quot-read-only-quot-switches-on-a-windows-file-using-php

Klenk