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unlink

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

unlink — Deletes a file

Description

unlink(string $filename, ?resource $context = null): bool

Deletes filename. Similar to the Unix C unlink() function. An E_WARNING level error will be generated on failure.

Parameters

filename

Path to the file.

If the file is a symlink, the symlink will be deleted. On Windows, to delete a symlink to a directory, rmdir() has to be used instead.

context

A context stream resource.

Return Values

Returns true on success or false on failure.

Changelog

Version Description
7.3.0 On Windows, it is now possible to unlink() files with handles in use, while formerly that would fail. However, it is still not possible to re-create the unlinked file, until all handles to it have been closed.

Examples

Example #1 Basic unlink() usage

<?php
$fh
= fopen('test.html', 'a');
fwrite($fh, '<h1>Hello world!</h1>');
fclose($fh);

unlink('test.html');
?>

See Also

  • rmdir() - Removes directory