File And Directory Manipulation In PHP (part 2) - Configuring The System (Page 4 of 13 )
If what you're really after involves reading configuration variables in from a standard .INI file, you don't need to write custom code to parse the file and read in the variable-value pairs. Instead, just use PHP's
parse_ini_file() function, which automatically takes care of this for you.
Consider the following sample .INI file,
[global]
printing = bsd
default case = lower
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
printcap name = /etc/printcap
max log size = 50
domain master = yes
dns proxy = no
[temp]
comment = Temporary file space
path = /tmp
read only = no
public = yes
create mask = 0777
force group = nobody
force user = nobody
and the PHP code to parse it:
<?php
// set file to read
$filename = "samba.ini";
// read INI file into array
$data = parse_ini_file($filename);
// print array
print_r($data);
?>
A quick glance at the output shows that PHP has, indeed, read the file, parsed its contents, and converted the variable-value pairs into an associative array.
Array
(
[printing] => bsd
[default case] => lower
[log file] => /var/log/samba/log.%m
[printcap name] => /etc/printcap
[max log size] => 50
[domain master] => 1
[dns proxy] =>
[comment] => Temporary file space
[path] => /tmp
[read only] =>
[public] => 1
[create mask] => 0777
[force group] => nobody
[force user] => nobody
)
The only problem with the approach, however, is that variables with the same name from different sections will override each other; if there are multiple configuration variables with the same name, the output array will always contain only the last value. In order to illustrate, look what happens when I add a new section to the sample file above which repeats some of the variables from a previous section:
[global]
printing = bsd
default case = lower
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
printcap name = /etc/printcap
max log size = 50
domain master = yes
dns proxy = no
[temp]
comment = Temporary file space
path = /tmp
read only = no
public = yes
create mask = 0777
force group = nobody
force user = nobody
[shared]
comment = Shared area
path = /shared
printable = no
create mode = 0770
directory mode = 0770
writeable = yes
Here's the output:
Array
(
[printing] => bsd
[default case] => lower
[log file] => /var/log/samba/log.%m
[printcap name] => /etc/printcap
[max log size] => 50
[domain master] => 1
[dns proxy] =>
[comment] => Shared area
[path] => /shared
[read only] =>
[public] => 1
[create mask] => 0777
[force group] => nobody
[force user] => nobody
[printable] =>
[create mode] => 0770
[directory mode] => 0770
[writeable] => 1
)
As you can see, some of the variable-value pairs (from the "temp" section of the file) have been lost. PHP offers a solution to this problem by allowing a second, optional argument to parse_ini_file() - a Boolean indicating whether the namespaces of the various sections should be respected. When I add that to the script above,
<?php
// set file to read
$filename = "samba.ini";
// read INI file into array
// process each section separately
$data = parse_ini_file($filename, true);
// print array
print_r($data);
?>
look how drastically the output changes:
Array
(
[global] => Array
(
[printing] => bsd
[default case] => lower
[log file] => /var/log/samba/log.%m
[printcap name] => /etc/printcap
[max log size] => 50
[domain master] => 1
[dns proxy] =>
)
[temp] => Array
(
[comment] => Temporary file space
[path] => /tmp
[read only] =>
[public] => 1
[create mask] => 0777
[force group] => nobody
[force user] => nobody
)
[shared] => Array
(
[comment] => Shared area
[path] => /shared
[printable] =>
[create mode] => 0770
[directory mode] => 0770
[writeable] => 1
)
)
With the addition of the second argument to parse_ini_file(), PHP now creates a nested array, with the outer array referencing the sections, and each inner one referencing the variables in each section.
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