What best practices should beginners follow when writing PHP scripts for directory handling?

When writing PHP scripts for directory handling, beginners should follow best practices such as checking if a directory exists before attempting to read or write to it, using appropriate file permissions to ensure security, and properly sanitizing user input to prevent directory traversal attacks. 

// Check if directory exists before reading or writing to it
$directory = '/path/to/directory';
if (is_dir($directory)) {
    // Directory exists, perform file operations here
} else {
    echo "Directory does not exist.";
}

// Set appropriate file permissions for security
chmod($directory, 0755);

// Sanitize user input to prevent directory traversal attacks
$user_input = $_POST['directory_name'];
$clean_input = realpath($directory . '/' . $user_input);

Keywords

PHP directory handling file system functions error handling security.

Related Questions