PHP FILE

File can store data and data stores on file can be permanent. We also can create a file template, and it can be a form or an email template. A file template defined variable that can be replaced. In this tutorial, you learn how to access file such as read, write, appending, or delete. Moreover, you learn how to replace string within a file, and you learn how to get the URL content. You also learn how to get records from database table and save them into file, and insert records from file to database table.

Outline

• You will learn how to access file from PHP
• Open File for Read
• Open File for Write
• Append to the beginning of a file
• Append to the end of the file
• Get URL Content
• Replace String within A file
• Using Text File as Template
• Introduction
• FILE PATH
• You need to know the different between Windows and Linux/Unix file path.
• In window: $window = fopen(“c:\\direct\file.txt”,’r’);
  In Linux/Unix: $linn = fopen(“/direct/file.txt”,’r’);
• Possible modes for fopen()
• Source(http://www.php.net)

A list of possible modes for fopen() using mode
mode	Description
‘r’	Open for reading only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file.
‘r+’	Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file.
‘w’	Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
‘w+’	Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file and truncate the file to zero length. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
‘a’	Open for writing only; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
‘a+’	Open for reading and writing; place the file pointer at the end of the file. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it.
‘x’	Create and open for writing only; place the file pointer at the beginning of the file. If the file already exists, the fopen() call will fail by returning FALSE and generating an error of level E_WARNING. If the file does not exist, attempt to create it. This is equivalent to specifying O_EXCL|O_CREAT flags for the underlying open(2) system call.
‘x+’	Create and open for reading and writing; otherwise it has the same behavior as ‘x’.
‘c’	Open the file for writing only. If the file does not exist, it is created. If it exists, it is neither truncated (as opposed to ‘w’), nor the call to this function fails (as is the case with ‘x’). The file pointer is positioned on the beginning of the file. This may be useful if it’s desired to get an advisory lock (see flock()) before attempting to modify the file, as using ‘w’ could truncate the file before the lock was obtained (if truncation is desired, ftruncate() can be used after the lock is requested).
‘c+’	Open the file for reading and writing; otherwise it has the same behavior as ‘c’.

 

 

 

How to use fopen()

<?php

$handler1 = fopen("/home/yourname/file.txt","r");

$handler2 = fopen("c:\\file.txt","r");

$handler3 = fopen("http//www.php.net/","r");

$handler4 = fopen("ftp://user:[email protected]/file.txt","w");

?>

Open file with file()

open1.php

If you need to get file that is larger than 10M, you are better use fopen().

test.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

getfile1.php

<?php

$my_file = 'test.txt';

$lines   = file($my_file);

foreach($lines as $line) {

echo $line . "<br/>";

}

?>

Display

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

Display File Information

We would like to get information about the file, such as file size, create date, permission, etc. The file permission is based on the linux file permission. Please remember that, you need to have a file in order to display the file information. If the file does not existed, it will display a warning or error. In addition, you will have a different file information according to the file you have. So don’t expect to have the same information as what we have now.

<?php

$my_file = 'book.txt';

getFileInfo($my_file);

function getFileInfo($filename) {

if(!file_exists($filename)) {

echo "$filename does not exist <br/>";

}

$exec_f = (is_executable($filename) ? "yes":"no");

$write_f = (is_writable($filename) ? "yes" : "no");

$read_f  = (is_readable($filename) ? "yes" : "no");

$a_f     = (is_file($filename) ? "yes":"no");

$d_f     = (is_dir($filename) ? "yes":"no");

echo "$filename is .. <br/>";

echo "Executable: ". $exec_f . "<br/>";

echo "Writable: ". $write_f . "<br/>";

echo "Readable:" . $read_f  . "<br/>";

echo "Is A file:" . $a_f  . "<br/>";

echo "Is A Directory:" . $d_f  . "<br/>";

echo "File Change time: ". date("D, Y M d g:i A",filectime($filename)) . "<br/>";

echo "File Access time: ". date("D, Y M d g:i A",fileatime($filename)) . "<br/>";

echo "File Update time: ". date("D, Y M d g:i A",filemtime($filename)) . "<br/>";

echo "File Size: ". filesize($filename). "bytes or ". (filesize($filename)/1023)."M<br/>";

echo "File Permission: " .substr(base_convert(fileperms($filename), 10, 8), 3);

}

?>

Display

book.txt is ..
Executable: no
Writable: yes
Readable:yes
Is A file:yes
Is A Directory:no
File Change time: Mon, 2011 Jun 20 8:25 PM
File Access time: Mon, 2011 Jun 20 9:59 PM
File Update time: Mon, 2011 Jun 20 9:59 PM
File Size: 121bytes or 0.11827956989247M
File Permission: 666

Reverse File

test.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

reversefile.php

We retrieve the file in the reverse order.

<?php

$my_file = 'test.txt';

$lines = file($my_file);

for ($i = count($lines)-1; $i >= 0; $i--) {

echo "Index: $i ". $lines[$i]."<br/>";

}

?>

Display

Index: 7 I meet you
Index: 6 I let you,
Index: 5 I give you,
Index: 4 I want you,
Index: 3 I need you,
Index: 2 I miss you,
Index: 1 I love you,
Index: 0 Hello world,

Delete File

We call an unlink function with the file name to delete a file. That’s it. How you delete a file.

<?php
// open a file for reading
$handler1 = fopen("file.txt","r");

// delete a file
unlink("file.txt");
?>

Read from file content

test.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

readingFile.php

Read a file content.

<?php

$file_name = 'test.txt';

$file_handler = fopen($file_name, 'r') or exit('can not open the file');

$file_content = fread($file_handler, filesize($file_name));

fclose($file_handler);

echo $file_content;

?>

Display

Hello world, I love you, I miss you, I need you, I want you, I give you, I let you, I meet you

readingFile2.php

We loop through a file and display each line.

<?php

$file = fopen('test.txt', 'r') or exit('unable to read the file');

while (!feof($file)) {

echo fgets($file). '<br/>';

}

fclose($file);

?>

Display

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

Write content to a file

write2afile.php

We would like to write a content to file.

<?php
$file_handler = fopen('test1.txt','w') or exit('unable to read the file');
$content  = 'Peace from your heart';
fwrite($file_handler, $content);
fclose($file_handler);
?>

Appending to the end of a file

test.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

appending2theend.php

We want to add the content at the end of a file.

<?php

$file_name = 'test1.txt';

$file_handler = fopen($file_name, 'a') or exit('can not open the file');

fwrite($file_handler, "good day\n");

fclose($file_handler);

?>

File Content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you
good day

Appending to the beginning of a file

test1.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

appendFile1.php

We want to append a new content to the beginning of a file.

<?php

$file_name = 'test1.txt';

// open file for reading only

$file_handler_1 = fopen($file_name, 'r') or exit('can not open file!');

// store the file content into $file_content_1

$file_content_1 = fread($file_handler_1, filesize($file_name));

// close file

fclose($file_handler_1);

$file_handler_2 = fopen($file_name, 'w+') or exit('can not open file!');

$conent_string = "Global\n";

$content_content = $conent_string . $file_content_1;

if (fwrite($file_handler_2, $content_content)) {

echo 'successfully append to the file<br/>';

} else {

echo 'can not write to the file<br/>';

}

fclose($file_handler_2);

?>

File Content

Global
Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

Replace file content

test.txt file content

Hello world,
I love you,
I miss you,
I need you,
I want you,
I give you,
I let you,
I meet you

avgScore4EachSubject.php

We would like to replace “I” with “Father” in the file content.

<?php

$file_name = 'test1.txt';

// open file for reading only

$file_handler_1 = fopen($file_name, 'r') or exit('can not open file!');

// store the file content into $file_content_1

$file_content_1 = fread($file_handler_1, filesize($file_name));

// replace file content

$new_file_content = str_replace('I', 'Father', $file_content_1);

// close file

fclose($file_handler_1);

$file_handler_2 = fopen($file_name, 'w+') or exit('can not open file!');

if (fwrite($file_handler_2, $new_file_content)) {

echo 'successfully write to the file<br/>';

} else {

echo 'can not write to the file<br/>';

}

fclose($file_handler_2);

?>

File Content

Hello world,
Father love you,
Father miss you,
Father need you,
Father want you,
Father give you,
Father let you,
Father meet you

Replace a string from an associative array

We have a list of string to be replaced within a file.

<?php

$file_name = 'test1.txt';

$str_replace = array('Father'=>'Mother','love'=>'care');

// open file for reading only

$file_handler_1 = fopen($file_name, 'r') or exit('can not open file!');

// store the file content into $file_content_1

$file_content_1 = fread($file_handler_1, filesize($file_name));

// replace file content with a list of string

$new_file_content =

str_replace(array_keys($str_replace), array_values($str_replace), $file_content_1);

// close file

fclose($file_handler_1);

$file_handler_2 = fopen($file_name, 'w+') or exit('can not open file!');

if (fwrite($file_handler_2, $new_file_content)) {

echo 'successfully write to the file<br/>';

} else {

echo 'can not write to the file<br/>';

}

fclose($file_handler_2);

?>

URL Content

Get URL content

<?php

$file = fopen('http://jobs.perl.org/','r');

$count_line=0;
while (!feof($file)) {
echo $count_line.' '. htmlspecialchars(fgets($file)) . "<br/>";
$count_line++;
}
fclose($file);

?>

Email Template

myprofile.txt

Hi [[:friend]],

How are you [[:friend]]? Today is [[:today]], I will go to shopping mall to buy some clothes.
Do you want to go with me? There are many friend will go with us? Do you know [[:ourfriend]]?

I am looking forward to hear from you? My number is [[:phonenumber]]. We are ging to meet at [[:place]]. 

See you,

[[:myname]]

Email Template

We want to create a text file template for our email.

myLetter.php

<?php

$file_name = 'myprofile.txt';

$array_email = array('[[:myname]]'=>'John',
'[[:friend]]'=>'Cristina',
'[[:today]]'=>'Sunday',
'[[:ourfriend]]'=>'Janny',
'[[:phonenumber]]'=>'318-555-3333',
'[[:place]]'=>'Dillair Mall');
// open file for reading only

$file_content_1 = file_get_contents($file_name);
// replace file content
$new_file_content = str_replace(array_keys($array_email), array_values($array_email), $file_content_1);

echo '<pre>'.$new_file_content . '</pre>';

?>

Display

Hi Cristina,

How are you Cristina? Today is Sunday, I will go to shopping mall to buy some clothes.
Do you want to go with me? There are many friend will go with us? Do you know Janny?

I am looking forward to hear from you? My number is 318-555-3333. We are ging to meet at Dillair Mall.

See you,

John

Text File Template

book.txt

The book Infor:

Author: {:author}

Price:  {:price}

Publisher: {:publisher}

Title:         {:title}

Info:   {:body}

bookTemplate.php

<?php

$file = 'book.txt';

$template_aa = array('{:author}','{:price}','{:publisher}','{:title}','{:body}');

$array_aa      = array('Jannifer Bill',30,'Orailly','PHP/MySQL','It\' a book for Web Developer and MySQL');

if (file_exists($file)) {

$file_content = file_get_contents($file);

$fin_content = str_replace($template_aa, $array_aa, $file_content);

print nl2br($fin_content);

}

?>

Display

The book Infor:
Author: Jannifer Bill
Price: 30
Publisher: Orailly
Title: PHP/MySQL
Info: It’ a book for Web Developer and MySQL

Select From MySQL and Save result to file, and from file insert into MySQL

In this tutorial, we will demonstrate on how to create an class to handle the query the table from the MySQL and store the result into text file. We also learn how to insert from text file into MySQL table.

We use the singleton class for the PDO connection to connect to the MySQL.

pdo_mysql.php connector for PDO

<?php

define('USERNAME2', 'youruser');
define('PASSWORD2', 'yourpassword');
define('DSN2', "mysql:host=localhost;dbname=socms");

class pdo_mysql {

private static $_instance;

public static function &pdo_connection() {
if (!self::$_instance) {
try {
self::$_instance = new PDO(DSN2, USERNAME2, PASSWORD2);
self::$_instance->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT, true);
self::$_instance->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
} catch (PDOException $est) {
die("pdo connection error! " . $est->getMessage() . "<br/>");
}
}
return self::$_instance;
}

private function __construct() {

}

private function __clone() {

}
}
?>

This class is the main class that we create to access to the MySQL table as well as store the result into the text file. Moreover, we also create method to insert into the MySQL table from text file.

insert2file.php

<?php

require_once 'pdo_mysql.php';

class insert2file extends pdo_mysql {

private $conn;
private $return_sql;
public $sql;

public function __construct() {
$this->conn = pdo_mysql::pdo_connection();
}

public function insert() {
$db = $this->conn->prepare($this->sql);
if (!$db->execute()) {
return false;
} else {
return true;
}
return false;
}

public function select() {
$db = $this->conn->prepare($this->sql);
if (!$db->execute()) {
return false;
}
$this->return_sql = $db->fetchall(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
return $this->return_sql;
}

public function save2file($file_nam=null) {
if (!empty($file_nam)) {
$file_name = $file_nam;
} else {
$file_name = 'ablec.txt';
}

$file_handler = fopen($file_name, 'w') or exit('can not save to file!!!');

$column_name = $this->column();
$string_column_name = implode(',', $column_name);
fwrite($file_handler, $string_column_name . "\n");

foreach ($this->return_sql as $key => $value) {
$string_to_save = implode(',', $value);
fwrite($file_handler, $string_to_save . "\n");
}
fclose($file_handler);
}

public function column() {
$result = $this->select($this->sql . ' LIMIT 1');
return array_keys($result[0]);
}

public function file2insert($file_name, $table_name) {

$file_handler = fopen($file_name, 'r') or exit('can not open file!');

$column_name = fgets($file_handler);
$column_array = explode(",", $column_name);

$column_array = explode(",", $column_name);

// create binding value
$temp = array();
$type_bind = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < count($column_array); $i++) {
$temp[] = "?";
}
$column_value = implode(', ', $temp);
// create binding insert statement
$this->sql = 'INSERT INTO ' . $table_name . '(' . $column_name . ') VALUES(' . $column_value . ')';
// total column need to bind
$total_coln = count($temp);

while (!feof($file_handler)) {
$value = fgets($file_handler);
if (!empty($value)) {
$arr_v = explode(",", $value);
$insert_statment = $this->conn->prepare($this->sql);
$insert_statment->execute($arr_v);
}
}
}
}

?>

insert() method

This method call to insert into the MySQL table.

select() method

This method return the result from the query.

save2file() method

Call this function, a file is created and the content of the query will be stored on that file.

column() method

return the column/field name of the table.

file2insert($filename, $tablename) method

Call this function to insert from a text file into a table. The text file must include a data that could be used to insert into a specific table. If you encountered an error while you try to insert from the file to the table, you must check whether it is problem with duplication key which is not allow for primary key.

Test The Example

We select everything from the page table and store it into the text file called ‘page222.txt’

<?php
$test = new insert2file();
$test->sql = "SELECT * FROM page";
$test->save2file('page222.txt');
?>
</pre>
<h3>Test The Example 2</h3>
Insert into the table from the text file. Please note that if the content of the record have the same duplicate primary key, it will display a warning or error.


<?php
$test = new insert2file();
$test->file2insert('page222.txt','page');
?>

Reading and Writing Configuration Files

Now that you know how to read and write files, let’s try creating an application that uses the functions described in the preceding section. Assume for a second that you’re developing a Weblog application, and you’d like your users to be able to configure certain aspects of this application’s behavior—for example, how many posts appear on the index page or the e-mail address that comments are sent to. In this case, you’d probably need to build a Web-based form that allows users to input these configuration values and saves them to a file that your application can read as needed.

This next listing generates just such a Web form, allowing users to enter values for different configuration values and then saving this information to a disk file. When users revisit the form, the data previously saved to the file is read and used to prefill the form’s fields.

Here’s the code (configure.php):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"

"DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">

<head>

<title>Reading And Writing Configuration Files</title>

</head>

<body>

<h2> Reading And Writing Configuration Files</h2>

<?php

// define configuration filename and path

$configFile = 'config.ini';

// if form not yet submitted

// display form

if (!isset($_POST['submit'])) {

// set up array with default parameters

$data = array();

$data['AdminEmailAddress'] = null;

$data['DefAuthor'] = null;

$data['NumPosts'] = null;

$data['NumComments'] = null;

$data['NotifyURL'] = null;

// read current configuration values

// use them to pre-fill the form

if (file_exists($configFile)) {

$lines = file($configFile);

foreach ($lines as $line) {

$arr = explode('=', $line);

$i = count($arr) - 1;

$data[$arr[0]] = $arr[$i];

}

}

?>

<form method="post" action="configure.php">

<table width="650" border="0" cellpadding="5">

<tr>

<td> Administrator email address: </td>

<td><input type="text" size="50" name="data[AdminEmailAddress]" value="<?php

echo $data['AdminEmailAddress']; ?>"/> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>  Default author name: </td>

<td>   <input type="text" name="data[DefAuthor]"  value="<?php echo

$data['DefAuthor']; ?>"/> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Number of posts on index page: </td>

<td>  <input type="text" size="4" name="data[NumPosts]" value="<?php echo

$data['NumPosts']; ?>"/> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Number of anonymous comments: </td>

<td><input type="text" size="4" name="data[NumComments]" value="<?php echo

$data['NumComments']; ?>"/> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td> URL for automatic notification of new posts: </td>

<td>   <input type="text" size="50" name="data[NotifyURL]" value="<?php echo

$data['NotifyURL']; ?>"/> </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>&nbsp;</td>

<td> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" /> </td>

</tr>

</table>

</form>

<?php

// if form submitted

// process form input

} else {

// read submitted data

$config = $_POST['data'];

// validate submitted data as necessary

if ((trim($config['NumPosts']) != '' && (int)$config['NumPosts'] <= 0) ||

(trim($config['NumComments']) != '' && (int)$config['NumComments'] <= 0)) {

die('ERROR: Please enter a valid number');

}

// open and lock configuration file for writing

$fp = fopen($configFile, 'w+') or die('ERROR: Cannot open configuration

file for writing');

flock($fp, LOCK_EX) or die('ERROR: Cannot lock configuration file for

writing');

// write each configuration value to the file

foreach ($config as $key => $value) {

if (trim($value) != '') {

fwrite($fp, "$key=$value\n") or die('ERROR: Cannot write [$key] to

configuration file');

}

}

// close and save file

flock($fp, LOCK_UN) or die ('ERROR: Cannot unlock file');

fclose($fp);

echo 'Configuration data successfully written to file.';

}

?>

</body>

</html>

This example illustrates a common, and practical, use of PHP’s file functions: to read and write configuration files in the context of a Web application. Figure 6-1 illustrates the Web form generated by this script.

Once the form is submitted, the data entered into it arrives in the form of an associative array, whose keys correspond to the configuration variables in use. This data is then validated and a file pointer is opened to the configuration file, config.ini. A foreach loop then iterates over the array, writing the keys and values to the file pointer in key=value format, with each key-value pair on a separate line. The file pointer is then closed, saving the data to disk.

Fig 1: A Web form to enter configuration data

Here’s an example of what config.ini would look like after submitting the form in Fig 1 :

[email protected]
DefAuthor=Charles W
NumPosts=8
NumComments=4

If a user revisits the Web form, the script first checks if a configuration file named config.ini exists in the current directory. If it does, the lines of the file are read into an array with PHP’s file() function; a foreach loop then processes this array, splitting each line on the equality (=) symbol and turning the resulting key-value pairs into an associative array. This array is then used to prefill the form fields, by assigning a value to each input field’s ‘value’ attribute.

Figure 2 illustrates one such Web form, prefilled with data read from the configuration file.Users are, of course, free to resubmit the form with new data; as explained previously, this submission will then be used to rewrite the configuration file with new values.