PHP - using a line from a text file in an IF statement - php

Question

I am trying to get a PHP file to read a specific line from a text file and then use that line in a string comparison for an if statement.
The second line in the textfield will always have one of two different values. Either &activeGame=0 or &activeGame=1.
The textfile:
boardarray=["NV", "SB", "VB", "NV"]
&activeGame=1
&activePlayer=V
The PHP-file:
$theFile = "test.txt";
$line = file($theFile);
echo $line[1]; //This will output "&activeGame=1" without quotation marks
if ($line[1] == "&activeGame=1") {
echo "The game is active";
} else {
echo "The game is not active";
}
Since echo $line[1] outputs &activeGame=1 I know that the PHP script can read the data from the text file.
The problem is that the if function will echo "The game is not active" and I cant figure out why.
EDIT
SOLUTION:
$theFile = "test.txt";
$line = file($theFile);
echo $line[1]; //This will output "&activeGame=1" without quotation marks
if (trim($line[1]) == "&activeGame=1") {
echo "The game is active";
} else {
echo "The game is not active";
}
The trim function on row 5 is what was missing.

Answer 1

Your problem is that every line of file ends with \n.
You can see it if you var_dump($line[1]) instead of echo it.
So real value for &activeGame=1 is &activeGame=1\n.
That's definitely not equals &activeGame=1.
So, before comparing - use trim function:
$theFile = "test.txt";
$line = file($theFile);
echo $line[1]; //This will output "&activeGame=1" without quotation marks
$line_one = trim($line[1]);
if ($line_one == "&activeGame=1") {
echo "The game is active";
} else {
echo "The game is not active";
}

Answer 2

First Problem was if you echo $line[1] then its value is "&activeGame=1 " ( Notice the whitespace at end . and the optimal Solution Code that will give you desired output is as below
<?php
$theFile = "test.txt";
$line = file($theFile);
echo trim($line[1]); //This will output "&activeGame=1" without quotation marks
$a=trim($line[1]);
$truestr="&activeGame=1";
if ($a == $truestr) {
echo "The game is active";
} else {
echo "The game is not active";
}
?>
OUTPUT
'&activeGame=1'The game is active

Answer 3

I would use parse_str this way even if there are more variables on that line you can always get that value. http://php.net/manual/en/function.parse-str.php
$theFile = "test.txt";
$line = file($theFile);
parse_str($line[1],$output);
if ($output['activeGame'] == 1) {
echo "The game is active";
} else {
echo "The game is not active";
}