Be warned, that is_writable returns false for non-existent files, although they can be written to the queried path.(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
is_writable — Tells whether the filename is writable
Returns true if the filename exists and is
writable. The filename argument may be a directory name allowing you
to check if a directory is writable.
Keep in mind that PHP may be accessing the file as the user id that the web server runs as (often 'nobody').
filenameThe filename being checked.
Returns true if the filename exists and is
writable.
Upon failure, an E_WARNING is emitted.
Example #1 is_writable() example
<?php
$filename = 'test.txt';
if (is_writable($filename)) {
echo 'The file is writable';
} else {
echo 'The file is not writable';
}
?>Note: The results of this function are cached. See clearstatcache() for more details.
As of PHP 5.0.0, this function can also be used with some URL wrappers. Refer to Supported Protocols and Wrappers to determine which wrappers support stat() family of functionality.
Be warned, that is_writable returns false for non-existent files, although they can be written to the queried path.To Darek and F Dot: About group permissions, there is this note in the php.ini file:
; By default, Safe Mode does a UID compare check when
; opening files. If you want to relax this to a GID compare,
; then turn on safe_mode_gid.
safe_mode_gid = OffCheck director is writable recursively. to return true, all of directory contents must be writable
<?php
function is_writable_r($dir) {
if (is_dir($dir)) {
if(is_writable($dir)){
$objects = scandir($dir);
foreach ($objects as $object) {
if ($object != "." && $object != "..") {
if (!is_writable_r($dir."/".$object)) return false;
else continue;
}
}
return true;
}else{
return false;
}
}else if(file_exists($dir)){
return (is_writable($dir));
}
}
?>It appears that is_writable() does not check full permissions of a file to determine whether the current user can write to it. For example, with Apache running as user 'www', and a member of the group 'wheel', is_writable() returns false on a file like
-rwxrwxr-x root wheel /etc/some.fileRegarding you might recognize your files on your web contructed by your PHP-scripts are grouped as NOBODY you can avoid this problem by setting up an FTP-Connection ("ftp_connect", "ftp_raw", etc.) and use methods like "ftp_fput" to create these [instead of giving out rights so you can use the usual "unsecure" way]. This will give the files created not the GROUP NOBODY - it will give out the GROUP your FTP-Connection via your FTP-Program uses, too.
Furthermore you might want to hash the password for the FTP-Connection - then check out:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Password_hashing.htmlThis file_write() function will give $filename the write permission before writing $content to it.
Note that many servers do not allow file permissions to be changed by the PHP user.
<?php
function file_write($filename, &$content) {
if (!is_writable($filename)) {
if (!chmod($filename, 0666)) {
echo "Cannot change the mode of file ($filename)";
exit;
};
}
if (!$fp = @fopen($filename, "w")) {
echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
exit;
}
if (fwrite($fp, $content) === FALSE) {
echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
exit;
}
if (!fclose($fp)) {
echo "Cannot close file ($filename)";
exit;
}
}
?>The results of this function seems to be not cached :
Tested on linux and windows
<?php
chmod($s_pathFichier, 0400);
echo'<pre>';var_dump(is_writable($s_pathFichier));echo'</pre>';
chmod($s_pathFichier, 04600);
echo'<pre>';var_dump(is_writable($s_pathFichier));echo'</pre>';
exit;
?>In Linux, you might encountering an issue which is a file is not writable even tho it has 644 permission! The problem is with SELinux, just disable it or add rules to allow it.This function returns always false on windows, when you check an network drive.
See PHP Bug https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=68926
See https://stackoverflow.com/q/54904676In response to Darek:
We have two servers: one running PHP 5.0.4 and Apache 1.3.33, the other running PHP 4.3.5 and Apache 1.3.27. The PHP 4 server exhibits the behavior you are describing, with is_writable() returning 'false' even though the www user is in the group that owns the file, but the PHP 5 server is returning 'true.'This is the latest version of is__writable() I could come up with.
It can accept files or folders, but folders should end with a trailing slash! The function attempts to actually write a file, so it will correctly return true when a file/folder can be written to when the user has ACL write access to it.
<?php
function is__writable($path) {
//will work in despite of Windows ACLs bug
//NOTE: use a trailing slash for folders!!!
//see http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=27609
//see http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=30931
if ($path{strlen($path)-1}=='/') // recursively return a temporary file path
return is__writable($path.uniqid(mt_rand()).'.tmp');
else if (is_dir($path))
return is__writable($path.'/'.uniqid(mt_rand()).'.tmp');
// check tmp file for read/write capabilities
$rm = file_exists($path);
$f = @fopen($path, 'a');
if ($f===false)
return false;
fclose($f);
if (!$rm)
unlink($path);
return true;
}
?>Since looks like the Windows ACLs bug "wont fix" (see http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=27609) I propose this alternative function:
<?php
function is__writable($path) {
if ($path{strlen($path)-1}=='/')
return is__writable($path.uniqid(mt_rand()).'.tmp');
if (file_exists($path)) {
if (!($f = @fopen($path, 'r+')))
return false;
fclose($f);
return true;
}
if (!($f = @fopen($path, 'w')))
return false;
fclose($f);
unlink($path);
return true;
}
?>
It should work both on *nix and Windows
NOTE: you must use a trailing slash to identify a directoryI'd like to also clarify a point on this. Even if you see 777 permissions for the directly, you may need to check your ACL, since your server's group might not have write permissions there.Check if a directory is writable. Work also on mounted SMB shares:
function isWritablePath($home, $xpath) {
$isOK = false;
$path = trim($xpath);
if ( ($path!="") && (strpos($path,$home)!==false) && is_dir($path) && is_writable($path) ) {
$tmpfile = "mPC_".uniqid(mt_rand()).'.writable';
$fullpathname = str_replace('//','/',$path."/".$tmpfile);
$fp = @fopen($fullpathname,"w");
if ($fp !== false) {
$isOK = true;
}
@fclose($fp);
@unlink($fullpathname);
}
return $isOK;
}Under Windows, it only returns the read-only attribute status, not the actual permissions (ACL).
See http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=27609