How do I get a file extension in PHP

Question

This is a question you can read everywhere on the web with various answers    ext   end explode       filename     ext   substr strrchr  filename        1    ext   substr  filename  strrpos  filename         1    ext   preg replace                 D     1    filename     exts   split            filename    n      count  exts -1   ext     exts  n     etc   However  there is always  the best way  and it should be on Stack Overflow

User · Answer

1  If you are using  PHP 5    5 3 6  you can use SplFileInfo  getExtension     Gets the file extension  Example code   lt  php   info   new SplFileInfo  test png    var dump  info- gt getExtension       info   new SplFileInfo  test tar gz    var dump  info- gt getExtension        gt    This will output  string 3   png  string 2   gz    2  Another way of getting the extension if you are using  PHP 4    4 0 3  PHP 5  is pathinfo  Example code   lt  php   ext   pathinfo  test png   PATHINFO EXTENSION   var dump  ext     ext   pathinfo  test tar gz   PATHINFO EXTENSION   var dump  ext      gt    This will output  string 3   png  string 2   gz       EDIT  removed a bracket

User · Answer

E-satis s response is the correct way to determine the file extension   Alternatively  instead of relying on a files extension  you could use the fileinfo to determine the files MIME type   Here s a simplified example of processing an image uploaded by a user      Code assumes necessary extensions are installed and a successful file upload has already occurred     Create a FileInfo object  finfo   new FileInfo null    path to magic file        Determine the MIME type of the uploaded file switch   finfo- gt file   FILES  image    tmp name    FILEINFO MIME                 case  image jpg            im   imagecreatefromjpeg   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image png            im   imagecreatefrompng   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image gif            im   imagecreatefromgif   FILES  image    tmp name         break

User · Answer

I found that the pathinfo   and SplFileInfo solutions works well for standard files on the local file system  but you can run into difficulties if you re working with remote files as URLs for valid images may have a    fragment identifiers  and or    query parameters  at the end of the URL  which both those solutions will  incorrect  treat as part of the file extension   I found this was a reliable way to use pathinfo   on a URL after first parsing it to strip out the unnecessary clutter after the file extension    url components   parse url  url      First parse the URL  url path    url components  path       Then get the path component  ext   pathinfo  url path  PATHINFO EXTENSION      Then use pathinfo

User · Answer

Use   str replace          strrchr  file name          for a quick extension retrieval  if you know for sure your file name has one

User · Answer

You can try also this    pathinfo basename   FILES  fileToUpload    name     PATHINFO EXTENSION

User · Answer

There is also SplFileInfo    file   new SplFileInfo  path    ext     file- gt getExtension      Often you can write better code if you pass such an object around instead of a string  Your code is more speaking then  Since PHP 5 4 this is a one-liner    ext     new SplFileInfo  path  - gt getExtension

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pathinfo     path info   pathinfo   foo bar baz bill     echo  path info  extension        bill

User · Answer

People from other scripting languages always think theirs is better because they have a built-in function to do that and not PHP  I am looking at Pythonistas right now  -     In fact  it does exist  but few people know it  Meet pathinfo      ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION     This is fast and built-in  pathinfo   can give you other information  such as canonical path  depending on the constant you pass to it   Remember that if you want to be able to deal with non ASCII characters  you need to set the locale first  E G   setlocale LC ALL  en US UTF-8      Also  note this doesn t take into consideration the file content or mime-type  you only get the extension  But it s what you asked for   Lastly  note that this works only for a file path  not a URL resources path  which is covered using PARSE URL   Enjoy

User · Answer

People from other scripting languages always think theirs is better because they have a built-in function to do that and not PHP  I am looking at Pythonistas right now  -     In fact  it does exist  but few people know it  Meet pathinfo      ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION     This is fast and built-in  pathinfo   can give you other information  such as canonical path  depending on the constant you pass to it   Remember that if you want to be able to deal with non ASCII characters  you need to set the locale first  E G   setlocale LC ALL  en US UTF-8      Also  note this doesn t take into consideration the file content or mime-type  you only get the extension  But it s what you asked for   Lastly  note that this works only for a file path  not a URL resources path  which is covered using PARSE URL   Enjoy

User · Answer

ext   preg replace                 D     1    fileName    preg replace approach we using regular expression search and replace  In preg replace function first parameter is pattern to the search  second parameter  1 is a reference to whatever is matched by the first      and third parameter is file name   Another way  we can also use strrpos to find the position of the last occurrence of a         in a file name and increment that position by 1 so that it will explode string from       ext   substr  fileName  strrpos  fileName         1

User · Answer

E-satis s response is the correct way to determine the file extension   Alternatively  instead of relying on a files extension  you could use the fileinfo to determine the files MIME type   Here s a simplified example of processing an image uploaded by a user      Code assumes necessary extensions are installed and a successful file upload has already occurred     Create a FileInfo object  finfo   new FileInfo null    path to magic file        Determine the MIME type of the uploaded file switch   finfo- gt file   FILES  image    tmp name    FILEINFO MIME                 case  image jpg            im   imagecreatefromjpeg   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image png            im   imagecreatefrompng   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image gif            im   imagecreatefromgif   FILES  image    tmp name         break

User · Answer

This will work   ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION

User · Answer

I tried one simple solution it might help to someone else to get just filename from the URL which having get parameters  lt  php   path    quot URL will be here quot   echo basename parse url  path   path        gt   Thanks

User · Answer

Use substr  path  strrpos  path      1    It is the fastest method of all compares    Kurt Zhong already answered   Let s check the comparative result here  https   eval in 661574

User · Answer

1  If you are using  PHP 5    5 3 6  you can use SplFileInfo  getExtension     Gets the file extension  Example code   lt  php   info   new SplFileInfo  test png    var dump  info- gt getExtension       info   new SplFileInfo  test tar gz    var dump  info- gt getExtension        gt    This will output  string 3   png  string 2   gz    2  Another way of getting the extension if you are using  PHP 4    4 0 3  PHP 5  is pathinfo  Example code   lt  php   ext   pathinfo  test png   PATHINFO EXTENSION   var dump  ext     ext   pathinfo  test tar gz   PATHINFO EXTENSION   var dump  ext      gt    This will output  string 3   png  string 2   gz       EDIT  removed a bracket

User · Answer

IMO  this is the best way if you have filenames like name name name ext  ugly  but it sometimes happens    ext       explode       filename      Explode the string  my ext    end  ext      Get the last entry of the array  echo  my ext

User · Answer

Sorry     Short Question  But NOT Short Answer   Example 1 for PATH   path     home ali public html wp-content themes chicken css base min css    name   pathinfo  path  PATHINFO FILENAME    ext    pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION   printf   lt hr gt  Name   s  lt br gt  Extension   s    name   ext     Example 2 for URL   url      www example com dir file bak php Something is wrong hello    url   parse url  url    name   pathinfo  url  path    PATHINFO FILENAME    ext    pathinfo  url  path    PATHINFO EXTENSION   printf   lt hr gt  Name   s  lt br gt  Extension   s    name   ext     Output of example 1   Name  base min Extension  css   Output of example 2   Name  file bak Extension  php   References   https   www php net manual en function pathinfo php https   www php net manual en function realpath php https   www php net manual en function parse-url php

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You can get all file extensions in a particular folder and do operations with a specific file extension    lt  php      files   glob  abc           abc is the folder all files inside folder       print r  files         echo count  files       for  i 0   i lt count  files    i               extension   pathinfo  files  i   PATHINFO EXTENSION             ext      extension              Do operation for particular extension type          if  extension   html                    Do operation                endfor      print r  ext     gt

User · Answer

E-satis s response is the correct way to determine the file extension   Alternatively  instead of relying on a files extension  you could use the fileinfo to determine the files MIME type   Here s a simplified example of processing an image uploaded by a user      Code assumes necessary extensions are installed and a successful file upload has already occurred     Create a FileInfo object  finfo   new FileInfo null    path to magic file        Determine the MIME type of the uploaded file switch   finfo- gt file   FILES  image    tmp name    FILEINFO MIME                 case  image jpg            im   imagecreatefromjpeg   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image png            im   imagecreatefrompng   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image gif            im   imagecreatefromgif   FILES  image    tmp name         break

User · Answer

substr  path  strrpos  path         1

User · Answer

Although the  best way  is debatable  I believe this is the best way for a few reasons   function getExt  path         basename   basename  path       return substr  basename  strlen explode       basename  0     1        It works with multiple parts to an extension  eg tar gz Short and efficient code It works with both a filename and a complete path

User · Answer

As long as it does not contain a path you can also use   array pop explode       fname     Where  fname is a name of the file  for example  my picture jpg  And the outcome would be  jpg

User · Answer

E-satis s response is the correct way to determine the file extension   Alternatively  instead of relying on a files extension  you could use the fileinfo to determine the files MIME type   Here s a simplified example of processing an image uploaded by a user      Code assumes necessary extensions are installed and a successful file upload has already occurred     Create a FileInfo object  finfo   new FileInfo null    path to magic file        Determine the MIME type of the uploaded file switch   finfo- gt file   FILES  image    tmp name    FILEINFO MIME                 case  image jpg            im   imagecreatefromjpeg   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image png            im   imagecreatefrompng   FILES  image    tmp name         break       case  image gif            im   imagecreatefromgif   FILES  image    tmp name         break

User · Answer

You can try also this  it works on PHP 5   and 7     info   new SplFileInfo  test zip    echo  info- gt getExtension       ----- Output ----- gt  zip   Tip  it returns an empty string if the file doesn t have an extension

User · Answer

Use   str replace          strrchr  file name          for a quick extension retrieval  if you know for sure your file name has one

User · Answer

Sometimes it s useful to not to use pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION   For example    path     path to file tar gz    echo ltrim strstr  path                 tar gz echo pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION      gz   Also note that pathinfo fails to handle some non-ASCII characters  usually it just suppresses them from the output   In extensions that usually isn t a problem  but it doesn t hurt to be aware of that caveat

User · Answer

ltrim strstr  file url                  this is the best way if you have filenames like name name name ext  ugly  but it sometimes happens

User · Answer

Actually  I was looking for that    lt  php   url    http   example com myfolder sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ    tmp    parse url  url   path     ext   pathinfo  tmp  PATHINFO EXTENSION    var dump  ext

User · Answer

IMO  this is the best way if you have filenames like name name name ext  ugly  but it sometimes happens    ext       explode       filename      Explode the string  my ext    end  ext      Get the last entry of the array  echo  my ext

User · Answer

This will work   ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION

User · Answer

pathinfo is an array  We can check directory name  file name  extension  etc     path parts   pathinfo  test png     echo  path parts  extension      n   echo  path parts  dirname      n   echo  path parts  basename      n   echo  path parts  filename      n

User · Answer

Example URL  http   example com myfolder sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ A  Don t use suggested unsafe PATHINFO  pathinfo  url   dirname       http   example com myfolder  pathinfo  url   basename      sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ              lt ------- BAD    pathinfo  url   extension     mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ                      lt ------- BAD    pathinfo  url   filename      sympony   B  Use PARSE URL  parse url  url   scheme       http  parse url  url   host         example com  parse url  url   path          myfolder sympony mp3  parse url  url   query        aa 1 amp bb 2  parse url  url   fragment     XYZ   BONUS  View all native PHP examples

User · Answer

If you are looking for speed  such as in a router   you probably don t want to tokenize everything  Many other answers will fail with  root my folder my css   ltrim strrchr  PATH

User · Answer

Actually  I was looking for that    lt  php   url    http   example com myfolder sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ    tmp    parse url  url   path     ext   pathinfo  tmp  PATHINFO EXTENSION    var dump  ext

User · Answer

ext   preg replace                 D     1    fileName    preg replace approach we using regular expression search and replace  In preg replace function first parameter is pattern to the search  second parameter  1 is a reference to whatever is matched by the first      and third parameter is file name   Another way  we can also use strrpos to find the position of the last occurrence of a         in a file name and increment that position by 1 so that it will explode string from       ext   substr  fileName  strrpos  fileName         1

User · Answer

A quick fix would be something like this      Exploding the file based on the   operator  file ext   explode       filename       Count taken  if more than one   exist  files like abc fff 2013 pdf  file ext count   count  file ext       Minus 1 to make the offset correct  cnt    file ext count - 1      The variable will have a value pdf as per the sample file name mentioned above   file extension    file ext  cnt

User · Answer

If you are looking for speed  such as in a router   you probably don t want to tokenize everything  Many other answers will fail with  root my folder my css   ltrim strrchr  PATH

User · Answer

The simplest way to get file extension in PHP is to use PHP s built-in function pathinfo    file ext   pathinfo  your file name here   PATHINFO EXTENSION   echo   file ext      The output should be the extension of the file e g   png  gif  or html

User · Answer

pathinfo     path info   pathinfo   foo bar baz bill     echo  path info  extension        bill

User · Answer

You can get all file extensions in a particular folder and do operations with a specific file extension    lt  php      files   glob  abc           abc is the folder all files inside folder       print r  files         echo count  files       for  i 0   i lt count  files    i               extension   pathinfo  files  i   PATHINFO EXTENSION             ext      extension              Do operation for particular extension type          if  extension   html                    Do operation                endfor      print r  ext     gt

User · Answer

Here is an example  Suppose  filename is  example txt     ext   substr  filename  strrpos  filename       -1   strlen  filename      So  ext will be   txt

User · Answer

There is also SplFileInfo    file   new SplFileInfo  path    ext     file- gt getExtension      Often you can write better code if you pass such an object around instead of a string  Your code is more speaking then  Since PHP 5 4 this is a one-liner    ext     new SplFileInfo  path  - gt getExtension

User · Answer

Sorry     Short Question  But NOT Short Answer   Example 1 for PATH   path     home ali public html wp-content themes chicken css base min css    name   pathinfo  path  PATHINFO FILENAME    ext    pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION   printf   lt hr gt  Name   s  lt br gt  Extension   s    name   ext     Example 2 for URL   url      www example com dir file bak php Something is wrong hello    url   parse url  url    name   pathinfo  url  path    PATHINFO FILENAME    ext    pathinfo  url  path    PATHINFO EXTENSION   printf   lt hr gt  Name   s  lt br gt  Extension   s    name   ext     Output of example 1   Name  base min Extension  css   Output of example 2   Name  file bak Extension  php   References   https   www php net manual en function pathinfo php https   www php net manual en function realpath php https   www php net manual en function parse-url php

User · Answer

pathinfo     path info   pathinfo   foo bar baz bill     echo  path info  extension        bill

User · Answer

People from other scripting languages always think theirs is better because they have a built-in function to do that and not PHP  I am looking at Pythonistas right now  -     In fact  it does exist  but few people know it  Meet pathinfo      ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION     This is fast and built-in  pathinfo   can give you other information  such as canonical path  depending on the constant you pass to it   Remember that if you want to be able to deal with non ASCII characters  you need to set the locale first  E G   setlocale LC ALL  en US UTF-8      Also  note this doesn t take into consideration the file content or mime-type  you only get the extension  But it s what you asked for   Lastly  note that this works only for a file path  not a URL resources path  which is covered using PARSE URL   Enjoy

User · Answer

I found that the pathinfo   and SplFileInfo solutions works well for standard files on the local file system  but you can run into difficulties if you re working with remote files as URLs for valid images may have a    fragment identifiers  and or    query parameters  at the end of the URL  which both those solutions will  incorrect  treat as part of the file extension   I found this was a reliable way to use pathinfo   on a URL after first parsing it to strip out the unnecessary clutter after the file extension    url components   parse url  url      First parse the URL  url path    url components  path       Then get the path component  ext   pathinfo  url path  PATHINFO EXTENSION      Then use pathinfo

User · Answer

Although the  best way  is debatable  I believe this is the best way for a few reasons   function getExt  path         basename   basename  path       return substr  basename  strlen explode       basename  0     1        It works with multiple parts to an extension  eg tar gz Short and efficient code It works with both a filename and a complete path

User · Answer

People from other scripting languages always think theirs is better because they have a built-in function to do that and not PHP  I am looking at Pythonistas right now  -     In fact  it does exist  but few people know it  Meet pathinfo      ext   pathinfo  filename  PATHINFO EXTENSION     This is fast and built-in  pathinfo   can give you other information  such as canonical path  depending on the constant you pass to it   Remember that if you want to be able to deal with non ASCII characters  you need to set the locale first  E G   setlocale LC ALL  en US UTF-8      Also  note this doesn t take into consideration the file content or mime-type  you only get the extension  But it s what you asked for   Lastly  note that this works only for a file path  not a URL resources path  which is covered using PARSE URL   Enjoy

User · Answer

Use substr  path  strrpos  path      1    It is the fastest method of all compares    Kurt Zhong already answered   Let s check the comparative result here  https   eval in 661574

User · Answer

I tried one simple solution it might help to someone else to get just filename from the URL which having get parameters  lt  php   path    quot URL will be here quot   echo basename parse url  path   path        gt   Thanks

User · Answer

ltrim strstr  file url                  this is the best way if you have filenames like name name name ext  ugly  but it sometimes happens

User · Answer

Do it faster  Low level calls need to be very fast so I thought it was worth some research  I tried a few methods  with various string lengths  extension lengths  multiple runs each   here s some reasonable ones  function method1  s   return preg replace  quot        quot   quot  quot   s       edge case problem function method2  s   preg match  quot               quot   s  a  return  a 1    function method3  s    n   strrpos  s  quot   quot    if  n   false  return  quot  quot  return substr  s  n 1    function method4  s    a   explode  quot   quot   s   n   count  a   if  n  1  return  quot  quot  return  a  n-1    function method5  s   return pathinfo  s  PATHINFO EXTENSION     Results were not very surprising  Poor pathinfo is  by far   the slowest  even with the PATHINFO EXTENSION option  it looks like he s trying to parse the whole thing and then drop all unnecessary parts  On the other hand  the built-in strrpos function is invented almost exactly for this job  takes no detours  so no wonder it performs a lot better than other applicants  Original filename was  something that contains dots txt Running 50 passes with 10000 iterations each Minimum of measured times per pass       Method 1    312 6 mike   response  txt     preg replace     Method 2    472 9 mike   response  txt     preg match     Method 3    167 8 mike   response  txt     strrpos     Method 4    340 3 mike   response  txt     explode     Method 5   2311 1 mike   response  txt     pathinfo   lt --------- poor fella  NOTE  the first method has a side effect  it returns the whole name when there s no extension  Surely it would make no sense to measure it with an additional strpos to avoid this behaviour  Conclusion This seems to be the Way of the Samurai  function fileExtension  s         n   strrpos  s  quot   quot        return   n   false     quot  quot    substr  s  n 1      Some test cases File name            fileExtension   ---------------------------------------- file                  quot  quot  file                  quot  quot  file txt              quot txt quot  file txt bin          quot bin quot  file txt whatever     quot whatever quot   htaccess             quot htaccess quot    The last one is a bit special  it could be only an extension  or an empty extension with the pure name being  quot  htaccess quot   I m not sure if there s a rule for that  So I guess you can go with both  as long as you know what you re doing

User · Answer

As long as it does not contain a path you can also use   array pop explode       fname     Where  fname is a name of the file  for example  my picture jpg  And the outcome would be  jpg

User · Answer

pathinfo is an array  We can check directory name  file name  extension  etc     path parts   pathinfo  test png     echo  path parts  extension      n   echo  path parts  dirname      n   echo  path parts  basename      n   echo  path parts  filename      n

User · Answer

Here is an example  Suppose  filename is  example txt     ext   substr  filename  strrpos  filename       -1   strlen  filename      So  ext will be   txt

User · Answer

Example URL  http   example com myfolder sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ A  Don t use suggested unsafe PATHINFO  pathinfo  url   dirname       http   example com myfolder  pathinfo  url   basename      sympony mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ              lt ------- BAD    pathinfo  url   extension     mp3 a 1 amp b 2 XYZ                      lt ------- BAD    pathinfo  url   filename      sympony   B  Use PARSE URL  parse url  url   scheme       http  parse url  url   host         example com  parse url  url   path          myfolder sympony mp3  parse url  url   query        aa 1 amp bb 2  parse url  url   fragment     XYZ   BONUS  View all native PHP examples

User · Answer

pathinfo     path info   pathinfo   foo bar baz bill     echo  path info  extension        bill

User · Answer

Sometimes it s useful to not to use pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION   For example    path     path to file tar gz    echo ltrim strstr  path                 tar gz echo pathinfo  path  PATHINFO EXTENSION      gz   Also note that pathinfo fails to handle some non-ASCII characters  usually it just suppresses them from the output   In extensions that usually isn t a problem  but it doesn t hurt to be aware of that caveat

User · Answer

You can try also this  it works on PHP 5   and 7     info   new SplFileInfo  test zip    echo  info- gt getExtension       ----- Output ----- gt  zip   Tip  it returns an empty string if the file doesn t have an extension

User · Answer

Do it faster  Low level calls need to be very fast so I thought it was worth some research  I tried a few methods  with various string lengths  extension lengths  multiple runs each   here s some reasonable ones  function method1  s   return preg replace  quot        quot   quot  quot   s       edge case problem function method2  s   preg match  quot               quot   s  a  return  a 1    function method3  s    n   strrpos  s  quot   quot    if  n   false  return  quot  quot  return substr  s  n 1    function method4  s    a   explode  quot   quot   s   n   count  a   if  n  1  return  quot  quot  return  a  n-1    function method5  s   return pathinfo  s  PATHINFO EXTENSION     Results were not very surprising  Poor pathinfo is  by far   the slowest  even with the PATHINFO EXTENSION option  it looks like he s trying to parse the whole thing and then drop all unnecessary parts  On the other hand  the built-in strrpos function is invented almost exactly for this job  takes no detours  so no wonder it performs a lot better than other applicants  Original filename was  something that contains dots txt Running 50 passes with 10000 iterations each Minimum of measured times per pass       Method 1    312 6 mike   response  txt     preg replace     Method 2    472 9 mike   response  txt     preg match     Method 3    167 8 mike   response  txt     strrpos     Method 4    340 3 mike   response  txt     explode     Method 5   2311 1 mike   response  txt     pathinfo   lt --------- poor fella  NOTE  the first method has a side effect  it returns the whole name when there s no extension  Surely it would make no sense to measure it with an additional strpos to avoid this behaviour  Conclusion This seems to be the Way of the Samurai  function fileExtension  s         n   strrpos  s  quot   quot        return   n   false     quot  quot    substr  s  n 1      Some test cases File name            fileExtension   ---------------------------------------- file                  quot  quot  file                  quot  quot  file txt              quot txt quot  file txt bin          quot bin quot  file txt whatever     quot whatever quot   htaccess             quot htaccess quot    The last one is a bit special  it could be only an extension  or an empty extension with the pure name being  quot  htaccess quot   I m not sure if there s a rule for that  So I guess you can go with both  as long as you know what you re doing

User · Answer

The simplest way to get file extension in PHP is to use PHP s built-in function pathinfo    file ext   pathinfo  your file name here   PATHINFO EXTENSION   echo   file ext      The output should be the extension of the file e g   png  gif  or html

User · Answer

A quick fix would be something like this      Exploding the file based on the   operator  file ext   explode       filename       Count taken  if more than one   exist  files like abc fff 2013 pdf  file ext count   count  file ext       Minus 1 to make the offset correct  cnt    file ext count - 1      The variable will have a value pdf as per the sample file name mentioned above   file extension    file ext  cnt

User · Answer

substr  path  strrpos  path         1

User · Answer

You can try also this    pathinfo basename   FILES  fileToUpload    name     PATHINFO EXTENSION

[php] How do I get a file extension in PHP?

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