Adding PHP Line Spaces In Codeigniter - php

Question

I am trying to write file but just need to work out best way to make some gaps/spaces between some code “[‘default’][‘hostname’]” space . ‘=’ . space “‘localhost’”can not work it out.
At the moment when reload page it produces $db['default']['hostname']='localhost'; but need gap/space $db['default']['hostname'] = 'localhost';
<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
class Welcome extends CI_Controller {
public function index(){
$output = '<?php' . "\n";
$output .= "\n";
$output .= '// DB' . "\n";
$output .= '$db' . "['default']['hostname']" space . '=' . space "'localhost'". ";" . "\n";
$file = fopen(APPPATH . 'config/database-test.php', 'w');
fwrite($file, $output);
fclose($file);
$this->load->view('welcome_message');
}
}

Answer 1

$output .= '$db' . "['default']['hostname']" space . '=' . space "'localhost'". ";" . "\n";
This line has syntax errors because you're missing the concat operator before the first space and after the second one (whatever the space is meant to be).
Instead of complicating things, why don't you just write this and avoid the concat hell:
$output .= '$db' . "['default']['hostname'] = 'localhost';\n";

Answer 2

I think I have found answer to make gap . " " . seems to do the trick.
$output .= '$db' . "['default']['hostname']" . " " . '=' . " " . "'localhost'". ";" . "\n";

Answer 3

As an additional note, I see you are writing a config file to be processed later.
I have found output buffering and var_export to do this job exceptionally well.
ob_start();
var_export($config);
$out = ob_get_clean();
then
fwrite($f, '$config = '.$out.';'); etc...
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.ob-get-clean.php
http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.var-export.php
basically this will turn an array into a parse-able string such as
array(
'default'=>array(
'hostname'=>'localhost',
'user' => 'user', ///etc
)
)
then just add the variable part and the ending semi-colon
if you plan to do multiple values this would be a much cleaner approach