Using fopen and fwrite with Zend Framework? - php

Question

I'm attempting to check for file existence with Zend Framework and, if the file doesn't exist, have it be created. Here's the code being used:
$filename = "/assessmentsFile/rubrics/$rubricID.php";
$somecontent = "test";
if (!$handle = fopen($filename, 'w+')) {
echo "Cannot open file ($filename)";
exit;
}
// Write $somecontent to our opened file.
if (fwrite($handle, $somecontent) === false) {
echo "Cannot write to file ($filename)";
exit;
}
However, I assume due to Zend's way of handling file structure, if a file doesn't exist it just spits out:
Warning: fopen(/assessmentsFile/rubrics/1.php) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory
Because the fopen function isn't working, fwrite is unable to write the file.
Is there another way of doing this?

Answer 1

Most likely the issue is with the path to $filename.
You have
$filename = "/assessmentsFile/rubrics/$rubricID.php";
which tries to create a file in the root of the server in a directory called assessmentsFile.
Most likely you need to be using:
$filename = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/assessmentsFile/rubrics/$rubricID.php";
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] should do the trick if the assessmentsFile folder is in your web root. Otherwise there are other variables you can use to get a fully qualified path, or you can simply hard-code the path:
$filename = "/home/yoursite/public_html/assessmentsFile/rubrics/$rubricID.php";

Answer 2

There's a function file_exists that tells you if the file exists, and with is_file you can check it's a file (and not a directory for example).
(Another way is to suppress warnings by putting an # before the function call (e.g. $handle=#fopen(...), but it's better to check for file existence)
Try this:
if(is_file($filename)){ // exists
$handle=fopen($filename,"w+");
}else{
$handle=fopen($filename,"w"); // create it
}
// ...