PHP functions to get and remove the file extension from a string

Heads up! This post was written in 2009, so it may contain information that is no longer accurate. I keep posts like this around for historical purposes and to prevent link rot, so please keep this in mind as you're reading.

— Cory

I use these regular expressions all the time, but it's much more convenient to have them both in convenient PHP functions.

// Returns only the file extension (without the dot)
function file_ext($filename) {
  return preg_match('/\./', $filename) ? preg_replace('/^.*\./', '', $filename) : '';
}

// Returns the file name minus its extension
function file_ext_strip($filename){
  return preg_replace('/.[^.]*$/', '', $filename);
}

You can also use the built-in pathinfo function to achieve the same result:

$filename = '/path/to/file.ext';

echo pathinfo($filename)['extension']; // "ext"
echo pathinfo($filename)['filename']; // "file"