Writing some data to a specific area within a file in PHP

Question

I'm experimenting with fopen for the first time and was wondering if it was possible to search for a particular section within a file before adding or replacing that content with data?

Ideally, I'd like to:

Use fopen to get the file
Search for a comment called 
Replace that comment with new data.

This possible? (for the record - Appending data to the end of the file or adding new data to a specific line number would not work for what I'm working on as the file is constantly changing).

Thanks!

Josh · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-04 21:45:11Z

1

<?php 
// make sure radio is set
if( isset($_POST['enableSocialIcons']) )
{
  // Open file for read and string modification 
  $file = "/test"; 
  $fh = fopen($file, 'r+'); 
  $contents = fread($fh, filesize($file)); 
  $new_contents = str_replace("hello world", "hello", $contents); 
  fclose($fh); 

  // Open file to write 
  $fh = fopen($file, 'r+'); 
  fwrite($fh, $new_contents); 
  fclose($fh); 
}
?>

From: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php#81325

EDIT: To see what exactly is getting sent by your form do this at the top of the PHP file you're posting to:

<?php

echo '<pre>';
print_r($_POST);
echo '</pre>';

exit;

?>

edited Nov 4, 2011 at 21:45

answered Nov 4, 2011 at 20:59

Josh

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3 Comments

tctc91 Over a year ago

Still having an issue if you have time to help: I'm trying to get a bit of logic working based on whether the value of a radio button is checked as yes or no. If it's yes then I want to replace the content using fopen with some data that was inputted into an input field. If it's no then I want to replace the content with nothing. Here's my code: (there's no errors at all. It just doesn't seem to like my radio buttons. (I got it working fine testing if an input field was empty or not btw.) pastebin.com/fQN608A7 I just pasted the areas related to my issue so not all the file is there).

tctc91 Over a year ago

for the record, I tested $enableSocialIcons and it does return yes or no successfully when I try to echo it after form submission

tctc91 Over a year ago

If the radio button is no: Array ( [field] => [enableSocialIcons] => yes [twitter] => ) if the radio button is yes: Array ( [field] => [enableSocialIcons] => yes [twitter] => ) The str_replace works fine and adds my twitter link in fine. But my problem is that when I select no, it's not doing what I want. It's acting as if I've selected yes. From what I understand, It should be doing a str_replace on that comment to make it completely blank. sorry about the bad formatting, it does it automatically on comments.

rogerlsmith · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-04 20:56:39Z

0

If you read the entire file in then use something str_replace to make the change, you should be able to get what you want.

answered Nov 4, 2011 at 20:56

rogerlsmith

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