Passing array to file()? - php

Question

I have a directory containing a changeable number of files, each of which contains a single character on the first line, and CSV for the remaining file content, such as:
U
Status4,jwalker,Tech Manual 03264
Status3,jwalker,Status Report 3213
Status4,rmartino,Tech Manual 52002
...
Using this code, I can easily get a listing of the all report filenames in a directory:
<?php
// Open session
session_start();
// Get array of reports from directory
$files = scandir('reports');
$files <= array_pop($files);
$files <= array_shift($files);
$files <= array_shift($files);
// Extract summaries
for ($i=0; $i <= count($files)-1; $i++) {
$summaries[$i] = file($files[$i]);
}
?>
The reason I would like to use the file() function in line 13 is because it would conveniently break the file into an array so I could easily reference a particular line, such as $summaries[3][2] to get the third line from the fourth file in the directory (remembering that I'm counting from the PHP default 0 here). The PHP.net documentation doesn't indicate anything about NOT using an array as the string to be passed to file(), so I would assume there is a way to do it. But I've only found constants and strings, not arrays being passed.
Anyone have any insight here? Much thanks!

Answer 1

There's no issue with passing the value of an array element $arr[$k] to file() as long as it's a string that represents a file path.
The problem is you're scanning the reports folder, and getting a list of file names not file paths. You need to prepend reports to the file name. Not doing so should cause an exception when file() can't find the file.
<?php
// Open session
session_start();
// Get array of reports from directory
$files = scandir('reports');
// Extract summaries
for ($i=0; $i <= count($files)-1; $i++) {
if ($files[$i] == '.' || $files[$i] == '..') continue;
$summaries[$i] = file('reports' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . $files[$i]);
}
?>
Also, not sure what the following is meant to be doing, but what it's actually doing is removing the last file, I've omitted it in my answer
$files <= array_pop($files);
The following two lines are presumably removing . and .. paths, I've replaced those with a check in the loop.
$files <= array_shift($files);
$files <= array_shift($files);