PHP Script to Display Latest Image in Directory

[Tony Laubach]

Hey all,

I'm coming short on my searches for a code and I was hoping to find some help here..

I've recently ventured into PHP for the first time during the updating of my site, and one thing I wanted to do was have a section that displays the latest image uploaded to a specific directory. Namely the directory to where my cell phone-sent photos go.

I've found a few close calls, but nothing which I would think would be easy.

Basically all I am trying to do is display an image on my website, but it is the latest uploaded image from a specific directory. When a new image is uploaded, the image on the page will change to that new image.

I'm fiddling with the filemtime and filectime commands, but still am coming up short.

<?php
$ctime = 0;
foreach (glob('*.jpg') as $file)
{
if ($mtime > filemtime($file))
{
$match = $file;
$mtime = filemtime($file);
}
}

print '<img src="' . htmlentities($file) . '" alt="Image Title Here">';
?>

That doesn't seem to want to post the most recently uploaded picture.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Scott Bell]

I believe your > should be <

Since the latest file should have the largest time? I have only dabbled in php, but the logic seems to be backwards.

 

[Mike Umscheid]

Tony, do the images that are uploaded to the directory have any specific date/time naming convention? If so, code can be written using the sort() command to sort an array of filenames by name/number, then finding the last (or first) index of the sorted array using end() which would identify the oldest/newest file, of course if the default file naming convention uses some sort of time/date or incremental system. Once that file is found, simply copy it to a static file name like "latestWhatever.jpg". This is how I go about displaying the latest StormLab4 image on my "Chase Mode" page on Underthemeso.com I'm not sure how cell phones photos are assigned filenames since I don't have a camera cell phone.

 

[Tony Laubach]

I believe your > should be <

Since the latest file should have the largest time? I have only dabbled in php, but the logic seems to be backwards.

Isn't programming fun.. stupid little things... I'll give that a shot and see (which may be exactly why the image never changed)! Thanks for catching that, Scott!

And Mike, I don't think there is any real pattern to the image naming. I do see your idea and may ask to see that particular piece of code in the event I re-impliment something similar with GRLevel3. The StormLab software can be configured to upload over images, and since I am not archiving (at the moment), I am sufficed with that. But, archiving may prove to be useful in the future, but I can do most of that on my own PC.

Thanks again!

 

[Tyler Allison]

Here's what you want:

$dir = '/home/tony/file_dir';
$base_url = 'http://www.website.com/file_dir';
$newest_mtime = 0;
$show_file = 'BROKEN';
if ($handle = opendir($dir)) {
 while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
    if (($file != '.') && ($file != '..')) {
       $mtime = filemtime("$dir/$file");
       if ($mtime > $newest_mtime) {
          $newest_mtime = $mtime;
          $show_file = "$base_url/$file";
       }
    }
  }
}
print $show_file;

 

[Darren Addy]

I still feel like a PHP newbie, so don't take anything I say without checking it, but (assuming the rest of Tyler's script does what you want), I think Tony wants the print statement to be:

print '<img src="' . $img_folder.$image) . '" alt="Image Title Here">';

Tony,
It sounds iike what you want is similar to an RSS feed for a directory. When something new is added, you want it to show up automatically somewhere. That being the case, you might find these PHP functions useful to your endeavors: RSS Feeds for FTP Servers

I also found a Google cache of a page that tells you how to get the 5 newest files in a directory:
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache...ectory&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=safari. I think you would have to modify the instructions to do something similar to what Tyler did above (start with a defined base URL variable and then append the resulting filename and put that in a IMG tag.)

In broader terms, what you are describing involves File and Directory Manipulation in PHP, so this tutorial may be useful.

Hope this is somewhat helpful.

 

[Tyler Allison]

Actually...

print '<img src="'.$show_file.'" alt="Image Title Here">';

but you had the jist.

The google cache link you provide is pretty good, but using a class for this is way overkill. I use something similar to the last example at AllisonHouse for one of my feeds, but in this case throwing all files into an array and then doing a sort and taking the last one is unnecessary and potentially a memory hog (think about 100,000 images in that directory).

 

[Tony Laubach]

Thanks for the input guys...

This is the code I have in place for this page...

<?php
$dir = 'fileDir/';
$base_url = 'http://www.tornadoeskick.com/fileDir/';
$newest_mtime = 0;
$show_file = 'BROKEN';
if ($handle = opendir($dir)) {
 while (false !== ($file = readdir($handle))) {
    if (($file != '.') && ($file != '..')) {
       $mtime = filemtime("$dir/$file");
       if ($mtime > $newest_mtime) {
          $newest_mtime = $mtime;
          $show_file = "$base_url/$file";
       }
    }
  }
}
print '<img src="' .$show_file. '" alt="Image Title Here">';
?>

It is working now! Thank you so much for your time with this!!!!

Now I have to get the mobile images set back up and she'll be good to go!

Again, thanks for the help on this!

Last question as I realized this to be a problem... that code will print out whatever the file, regardless of extension; using the original code's "for each" line, can I tell this to only do it with a certain extension (i.e. JPEGs)?

 

[Darren Addy]

I believe that first you would need a function like this:

/**
* gets the filetype for an image
*
* @param  string  $file the filename
*/
function FiletypeFromName($file)
{
	preg_match("/\.(\w*)$/", $file, $matches);

	return isset($matches[1]) ? $matches[1] : false;
} // end FiletypeFromName();

Then you would use that function to get the file type from your files, like:

$filetype = FiletypeFromName($file);

And once you have that you can create an IF statement like:

if ($filetype == "jpg" || $filetype == "jpeg")

I'd probably incorporate that last part in with your current "if ($mtime > $newest_mtime) line:

if (($mtime > $newest_mtime) && ($filetype == "jpg" || $filetype == "jpeg"))

Again, I'm a newbie, so more experienced programming eyes will be better at checking my solution.