Reading from Files - PHP

Reading and writing to files can be useful if you do not require the storing of important data, such as a web counter. I must warn you though, that this method of storage should not be used to store passwords and other critical information, as it is not safe. Here we will discuss how to handle files and directories in PHP, specifically, how to create, read and write them.

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By: Jacques Noah

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August 23, 2006

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In PHP, to read from a file is easier than to write to a file. Instead of creating a file pointer and using the fopen() function, you simply read the entire file into an array and then retrieve it from there:

$theArray = file('theFilename');

The file() function does all the work of reading the entire file and placing it in a array. Each element in the array will then contain one line from the file.

To demonstrate how to read from a file, let's read the names from the text file that we stored them in. Create a PHP document and call it readnames.php:

<?
$thenames = file('names.txt');
$num_names = count($thenames);
for($i=0; $i < $num_names; $i++){
echo $thenames[$i]. "<br>";
}
?>

The for Loop runs through the contents of the arrays and prints the names out. Below is a screen shot of the results I got:

Conclusion

We're finished with part one of this discussion. In part two of this article, we will be looking at file uploading and how to handle file uploads. Till then, have fun reading and writing from files.