How to zip a whole folder using PHP

Code updated 2015/04/22.

Zip a whole folder:

// Get real path for our folder
$rootPath = realpath('folder-to-zip');

// Initialize archive object
$zip = new ZipArchive();
$zip->open('file.zip', ZipArchive::CREATE | ZipArchive::OVERWRITE);

// Create recursive directory iterator
/** @var SplFileInfo[] $files */
$files = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
    new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($rootPath),
    RecursiveIteratorIterator::LEAVES_ONLY
);

foreach ($files as $name => $file)
{
    // Skip directories (they would be added automatically)
    if (!$file->isDir())
    {
        // Get real and relative path for current file
        $filePath = $file->getRealPath();
        $relativePath = substr($filePath, strlen($rootPath) + 1);

        // Add current file to archive
        $zip->addFile($filePath, $relativePath);
    }
}

// Zip archive will be created only after closing object
$zip->close();

Zip a whole folder + delete all files except "important.txt":

// Get real path for our folder
$rootPath = realpath('folder-to-zip');

// Initialize archive object
$zip = new ZipArchive();
$zip->open('file.zip', ZipArchive::CREATE | ZipArchive::OVERWRITE);

// Initialize empty "delete list"
$filesToDelete = array();

// Create recursive directory iterator
/** @var SplFileInfo[] $files */
$files = new RecursiveIteratorIterator(
    new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($rootPath),
    RecursiveIteratorIterator::LEAVES_ONLY
);

foreach ($files as $name => $file)
{
    // Skip directories (they would be added automatically)
    if (!$file->isDir())
    {
        // Get real and relative path for current file
        $filePath = $file->getRealPath();
        $relativePath = substr($filePath, strlen($rootPath) + 1);

        // Add current file to archive
        $zip->addFile($filePath, $relativePath);

        // Add current file to "delete list"
        // delete it later cause ZipArchive create archive only after calling close function and ZipArchive lock files until archive created)
        if ($file->getFilename() != 'important.txt')
        {
            $filesToDelete[] = $filePath;
        }
    }
}

// Zip archive will be created only after closing object
$zip->close();

// Delete all files from "delete list"
foreach ($filesToDelete as $file)
{
    unlink($file);
}

I assume this is running on a server where the zip application is in the search path. Should be true for all unix-based and I guess most windows-based servers.

exec('zip -r archive.zip "My folder"');
unlink('My\ folder/index.html');
unlink('My\ folder/picture.jpg');

The archive will reside in archive.zip afterwards. Keep in mind that blanks in file or folder names are a common cause of errors and should be avoided where possible.

There is a useful undocumented method in the ZipArchive class: addGlob();

$zipFile = "./testZip.zip";
$zipArchive = new ZipArchive();

if ($zipArchive->open($zipFile, (ZipArchive::CREATE | ZipArchive::OVERWRITE)) !== true)
    die("Failed to create archive\n");

$zipArchive->addGlob("./*.txt");
if ($zipArchive->status != ZIPARCHIVE::ER_OK)
    echo "Failed to write files to zip\n";

$zipArchive->close();

Now documented at: www.php.net/manual/en/ziparchive.addglob.php