php: glob() vs opendir() and friends

in the past ive done file structure handling in php with opendear readdir etc.

someone told me i should start using glob becasue its better,

on the php site for the glob function
http://us2.php.net/glob
someone posted this

Quote:

---

funny enough, but our testing opendir VS glob

show advantage of opendir by speed

0.00115704536438
and
0.0068039894104

or if to pass 200 times
0.210277080536
vs
1.2976038456

---

so apparently opendir is faster (by alot)? or did this guy just do a bad test? or are there other reasons to use glob

> someone told me i should start using glob becasue its better
Better as in easier to use and you get pattern matching thrown in for "free"?

Except they aren't free, so if you're always matching say "*" (for everything), then perhaps it's not so good, unless "*" is a special case inside glob.

I notice the function has a bunch of flags you can specify, perhaps being a little more careful with your choices would help.

It's one function wrapping up a lot of functions.

> so apparently opendir is faster (by alot)?
Seeing as you would only normally want to read it once, why would this matter in the grand scheme of things?

Sure, if you have 000's of files, AND you want all of them, then opendir etc may be a better way.