PHP: How can I grab a single file from a directory without scanning entire directory?

Question

I have a directory with 1.3 Million files that I need to move into a database. I just need to grab a single filename from the directory WITHOUT scanning the whole directory.

Answer 1

Just obtain the directories iterator and look for the first entry that is a file:

foreach(new DirectoryIterator('.') as $file)
{
    if ($file->isFile()) {
        echo $file, "\n";
        break;
    }        
}

This also ensures that your code is executed on some other file-system behaviour than the one you expect.

See DirectoryIterator and SplFileInfo.