How to Get a File Extension in PHP

09/05/2021

Contents

In this article, you will learn how to get a file extension in PHP.

PHP pathinfo() Function

In PHP, you can get the file extension of a given file path using the pathinfo() function.

Here’s an example:

<?php
  $path = "/path/to/file.txt";
  $file_extension = pathinfo($path, PATHINFO_EXTENSION);
?>

The second argument to the pathinfo() function, PATHINFO_EXTENSION, specifies that you want to retrieve the file extension only.

The pathinfo() function in PHP returns an associative array containing information about a file path, including the directory name, base name, and extension.

Here’s an example of how you can use pathinfo() to retrieve all information about a file:

<?php
  $path = "/path/to/file.txt";
  $file_info = pathinfo($path);

  echo "Directory name: " . $file_info['dirname'] . "\n";
  echo "Base name: " . $file_info['basename'] . "\n";
  echo "Extension: " . $file_info['extension'] . "\n";
?>

The pathinfo() function returns an associative array with the following keys:

  • dirname: The directory name of the file
  • basename: The base name of the file (i.e., the file name without the extension)
  • extension: The file extension (if any)
  • filename: The file name without the extension (added in PHP 5.2.0)

Keep in mind that pathinfo() only works with file paths and not actual file contents.

#PHP