Greater than 13 character filenames tend to return as garbage after the first 13/14 characters.  Compiled PHP with gcc 2.8.1 (built under IRIX 6.5.3m (?)).

An example of a returned file name with readdir is:  general399f1d3^Z01c  
Where the filename is:   general399f1d36ea41c  

Example code:

 $handle = opendir($config["base"] ."/contrib");
 while ($file = readdir($handle)) { $f++; }
 closedir($handle);
 if ($f > 2) { // if there are files to be processed
     $handle=opendir($config["base"] ."/contrib");
     while (($file = readdir($handle))!==false)
        {
          if ($file != "." && $file != "..") {
          print $file;
        }