# Scandir - parent directory scanning help

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/scandir-parent-directory-scanning-help/270824>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [September 15, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/scandir-parent-directory-scanning-help/270824 "2008-09-15T00:52:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kevisazombie](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/kevisazombie/32/3903_2.png) [@kevisazombie](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/kevisazombie)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/scandir-parent-directory-scanning-help/270824/1 "2008-09-15T00:52:42Z")

</div>

Hi All,

I am trying to make a function that builds a navigation menu. The function scans the current directory ( ./) the page is in for any sub-directories and outputs links to them. If no sub-directories are found it falls back and scans the parent directory ( …/). The problem I am running into is using scandir on the parent never produces any results. It treats it as a legal directory because it dosen’t throw an exception but it always returns a empty array.

```auto

function buildNavList(){
	global $baseDIR;
	
	$thisDIR = ".";
	$listItems = Array();
	
	while(count($listItems) == 0){
		$dirContents = scandir($thisDIR);
	
		for($i = 0; $i<count($dirContents); $i++){
			if(is_dir($dirContents[$i]) and checkDirs($dirContents[$i]) == true ){
				$listItems[] = $dirContents[$i];
			}
		}

		if($thisDIR == "."){
					echo"Thisdir = '$thisDIR'";
			$thisDIR = $thisDIR."/";
		}
		$thisDIR = $thisDIR."../";

		
	}
	

	
	//print_r($listItems);
	echo"Liste item count=".count($listItems)."

";
		
		for($i = 0; $i<count($listItems); $i++){	

				echo" <li><a href=\"".strtolower($listItems[$i])."/\">{$listItems[$i]}</a></li>
";
		}
		
}

function checkDirs($dirNameToCheck){// function checks to make sure the link being made is not leading to a directory we dont want listed
	$dontLinkDirs = Array('.', '..', 'pics', 'thumbs', 'slideshow', 'text', 'about', 'contact', 'dont_touch', 'gallery', 'pricing');
	
	if(!in_array($dirNameToCheck, $dontLinkDirs)){
		return true;
	}

	
}

```

I’ve tried scanning parent directorys using ( …/) and also complicated dirname(dirname(basename($thisfile) crap. Same results with both. The code i posted might be a little off i have been hacking at it but it should give you an idea. Id appreciate any help.