Can I read a .TXT file with PHP? - php

Question

As I start the process of writing my site in PHP and MySQL, one of the first PHP scripts I've written is a script to initialize my database. Drop/create the database. Drop/create each of the tables. Then load the tables from literals in the script.
That's all working fine! Whoohoo :-)
But I would prefer to read the data from files rather than hard-code them in the PHP script.
I have a couple of books on PHP, but they're all oriented toward web development using MySQL. I can't find anything about reading and writing to ordinary files.
Yes, I know there's a gazillion questions here on stackoverflow about reading TXT files, but when I look at each one, they're for C or C# or VB or Perl. I'm beginning to think that PHP just can't read files :-(
All I need is a brief PHP example of how to open a TXT file on the server, read it sequentially, display the data on the screen, and close the file, as in this pseudo-code:
program readfile;
handle = open('myfile.txt');
data = read (handle);
while (not eof (handle)) begin
display data;
data = read (handle);
end;
close (handle);
end;
I will also need to write files on the server when I get to the part of my site where people upload avatars, and save them as JPG or GIF files. But that's for later.
Thanks!

Answer 1

From the PHP manual for fread():
<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
$handle = fopen($filename, "r");
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
fclose($handle);
?>
EDIT
per the comment, you can read a file line by line with fgets()
<?php
$handle = #fopen("/tmp/inputfile.txt", "r");
if ($handle) {
while (($buffer = fgets($handle, 4096)) !== false) {
echo $buffer;
}
if (!feof($handle)) {
echo "Error: unexpected fgets() fail\n";
}
fclose($handle);
}
?>

Answer 2

All I need is a brief PHP example of how to open a TXT file on the server, read it sequentially, display the data on the screen, and close the file, as in this pseudo-code:
echo file_get_contents('/path/to/file.txt');
Yes that brief, see file_get_contents, you normally don't need a loop:
$file = new SPLFileObject('/path/to/file.txt');
foreach($file as $line) {
echo $line;
}

Answer 3

Well, since you're asking about resources on the subject, there's a whole book on it in the PHP.net docs.
A basic example:
<?php
// get contents of a file into a string
$filename = "/usr/local/something.txt";
$handle = fopen($filename, "r");
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
fclose($handle);
?>

Answer 4

Why you not read php documentation about fopen
$file = fopen("source/file.txt","r");
if(!file)
{
echo("ERROR:cant open file");
}
else
{
$buff = fread ($file,filesize("source/file.txt"));
print $buff;
}

Answer 5

file_get_contents does all that for you and returns the text file in a string :)

Answer 6

You want to read line by line? Use fgets.
$handle = #fopen("myfile.txt", "r");
if ($handle) {
while (($content = fgets($handle, 4096)) !== false) {
//echo $content;
}
if (!feof($handle)) {
echo "Error: unexpected fgets() fail\n";
}
fclose($handle);
}