What role does the glob function play in the context of sorting files in a directory using PHP?

The glob function in PHP allows us to retrieve an array of file names that match a specified pattern within a directory. By using the glob function, we can easily fetch all the file names in a directory and then sort them based on our desired criteria, such as file name, file size, or file creation date.

// Get all file names in a directory
$files = glob('/path/to/directory/*');

// Sort the files alphabetically
sort($files);

// Loop through the sorted files
foreach ($files as $file) {
    echo $file . "\n";
}