What is the purpose of using the opendir function in PHP?

The opendir function in PHP is used to open a directory handle, allowing you to read the contents of a directory. This function is useful when you need to iterate through the files within a directory, such as when you want to display a list of files or perform operations on each file.

$directory = "/path/to/directory";

if ($handle = opendir($directory)) {
    while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
        echo $file . "<br>";
    }
    closedir($handle);
}