CFDIRECTORY |
Description
Manages interactions with directories.
Category
File management tags

Syntax

    <cfdirectory
       action = "directory action"
       directory = "directory name"
       name = "query name"
       filter = "list filter"
       mode = "permission"
       sort = "sort specification"
       newDirectory = "new directory name">

See also
cffile
History

ColdFusion MX:

- Changed behavior for action = "list":

- On Windows, cfdirectory action = "list" no longer returns the directory entries "." (dot) or ".." (dot dot), which represent "the current directory" and "the parent directory."
- On Windows, cfdirectory action = "list" no longer returns the values of the Archive and System attributes.
- On UNIX and Linux, cfdirectory action = "list" does not return any information in the mode column.

Usage

Note: | For this tag execute, it must be enabled in the ColdFusion Administrator. For more information, see Configuring and Administering ColdFusion MX.

If you put ColdFusion applications on a server that is used by multiple customers, you must consider the security of files and directories that could be uploaded or otherwise manipulated with this tag by unauthorized users. For more information about securing ColdFusion tags, see Configuring and Administering ColdFusion MX.

If action = "list", cfdirectory returns these result columns, which you can reference in a cfoutput tag:

- name: directory entry name. The entries "." and ".." are not returned.
- size: directory entry size
- type: file type: File, for a file; Dir, for a directory
- dateLastModified: the date that an entry was last modified
- attributes: file attributes, if applicable
- mode: Empty column; retained for backward compatibility with ColdFusion 5 applications on UNIX.

You can use the following result columns in standard CFML expressions, preceding the result column name with the query name:

    #mydirectory.name#
    #mydirectory.size#
    #mydirectory.type#
    #mydirectory.dateLastModified#
    #mydirectory.attributes#
    #mydirectory.mode#

Note: | If the cfdirectory tag does not appear to work, for example, if a list operation returns an empty result set, make sure that you have correct permissions to access the directory. For example, if you run ColdFusion as a service on Windows, it operates by default as System, and cannot access directories on a remote system or mapped drive; to resolve this issue, do not run ColdFusion using the local system account.

The filter attribute specifies a pattern of one or more characters. All names that match that pattern are included in the list. On Windows systems, pattern matching ignores text case, on UNIX and Linux, pattern matches are case-sensitive.

The following 2 characters have special meaning in the pattern and are called metacharacters:

- * matches any zero or more characters
- ? matches any single character

The following table shows examples of patterns and file names that they match:

pattern | matches
--- | ---
foo.* | any file called foo with any extention i.e. foo.html, foo.cfm, foo.xml, ...
*.html | all files with the suffix .html, but not files with the suffix .htm.
?? | all files with 2 character names.

Example

    <h3>cfdirectory Example</h3>
    <!--- use cfdirectory to give the contents of the directory that contains
    this page order by name and size --->
    <cfdirectory
       directory="#GetDirectoryFromPath(GetTemplatePath())#"
       name="myDirectory"
       sort="name ASC, size DESC">
    <!---- Output the contents of the cfdirectory as a cftable ----->
    <cftable
       query="myDirectory"
       htmltable
       colheaders>
       <cfcol
          header="NAME:"
          text="#Name#">
       <cfcol
          header="SIZE:"
          text="#Size#">
    </cftable>

ACTION |
| Optional

Default value: "List"

- list: returns a query record set of the files in the specified directory. The directory entries "." (dot) and ".." (dot dot), which represent the current directory and the parent directory, are not returned.
- create
- delete
- rename

DIRECTORY |
| Required
Absolute pathname of directory against which to perform action.

NAME |
| Required if action = "list"
Name for output record set.

FILTER |
| Optional if action = "list"
File extension filter applied to returned names. For example: *.cfm. One filter can be applied.

MODE |
| Optional

Used with action = "create". Permissions. Applies only to UNIX and Linux. Octal values of chmod command. Assigned to owner, group, and other, respectively. For example:

- 644: Assigns read/write permission to owner; read permission to group and other
- 777: Assigns read/write/execute permission to all

SORT |
| Optional; used if action = "list"

Default value: "ASC"

Query column(s) by which to sort directory listing. Delimited list of columns from query output.

To qualify a column, use:

- ac: ascending (a to z) sort order
- desc: descending (z to a) sort order

For example:

sort = "dirname ASC, file2 DESC, size, datelastmodified"

NEWDIRECTORY |
| Required if action = "rename"
New name for directory