I want to write a raw byte/byte stream to a position in a file.
This is what I have currently:
$fpr = fopen($out, 'r+');
fseek($fpr, 1); //seek to second byte
fwrite($fpr, 0x63);
fclose($fpr);
This currently writes the actually string value of "99" starting at byte offset 1. IE, it writes bytes "9" and "9". I just want to write the actual one byte value 0x63 which happens to represent number 99.
Thanks for your time.
fwrite() takes strings. Try chr(0x63) if you want to write a 0x63 byte to the file.
That's because fwrite() expects a string as its second argument. Try doing this instead:
fwrite($fpr, chr(0x63));
chr(0x63) returns a string with one character with ASCII value 0x63. (So it'll write the number 0x63 to the file.)
You are trying to pass an int to a function that accepts a string, so it's being converted to a string for you.
This will write what you want:
fwrite($fpr, "\x63");
If you really want to write binary to files, I would advise to use the pack() approach together with the file API.
See this question for an example.
Related
I need to split a big DBF file using php functions, this means that i have for example 1000 records, i have to create 2 files with 500 records each.
I do not have any dbase extension available nor i can install it so i have to work with basic php functions. Using basic fread function i'm able to correctly read and parse the file, but when i try to write a new dbf i have some problems.
As i have understood, the DBF file is structured in a 2 line file: the first line contains file info, header info and it's in binary. The second line contains the data and it's plain text. So i thought to simply write a new binary file replicating the first line and manually adding the first records in the first file, the other records in the other file.
That's the code i use to parse the file and it works nicely
$fdbf = fopen($_FILES['userfile']['tmp_name'],'r');
$fields = array();
$buf = fread($fdbf,32);
$header=unpack( "VRecordCount/vFirstRecord/vRecordLength", substr($buf,4,8));
$goon = true;
$unpackString='';
while ($goon && !feof($fdbf)) { // read fields:
$buf = fread($fdbf,32);
if (substr($buf,0,1)==chr(13)) {$goon=false;} // end of field list
else {
$field=unpack( "a11fieldname/A1fieldtype/Voffset/Cfieldlen/Cfielddec", substr($buf,0,18));
$unpackString.="A$field[fieldlen]$field[fieldname]/";
array_push($fields, $field);
}
}
fseek($fdbf, 0);
$first_line = fread($fdbf, $header['FirstRecord']+1);
fseek($fdbf, $header['FirstRecord']+1); // move back to the start of the first record (after the field definitions)
first_line is the variable the contains the header data, but when i try to write it in a new file something wrong happens and the row isn't written exactly as it was read. That's the code i use for writing:
$handle_log = fopen($new_filename, "wb");
fwrite($handle_log, $first_line, strlen($first_line) );
fwrite($handle_log, $string );
fclose($handle_log);
I've tried to add the b value to fopen mode parameter as suggested to open it in a binary way, i've also taken a suggestion to add exactly the length of the string to avoid the stripes of some characters but unsuccessfully since all the files written are not correctly in DBF format. What can i do to achieve my goal?
As i have understood, the DBF file is structured in a 2 line file: the
first line contains file info, header info and it's in binary. The
second line contains the data and it's plain text.
Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.
See here for a full description of the dbf file format.
So it would be best if you could use a library to read and write the dbf files.
If you really need to do this yourself, here are the most important parts:
Dbf is a binary file format, so you have to read and write it as binary. For example the number of records is stored in a 32 bit integer, which can contain zero bytes.
You can't use string functions on that binary data. For example strlen() will scan the data up to the first null byte, which is present in that 32 bit integer, and will return the wrong value.
If you split the file (the records), you'll have to adjust the record count in the header.
When splitting the records keep in mind that each record is preceded by an extra byte, a space 0x20 if the record is not deleted, an asterisk 0x2A if the record is deleted. (for example, if you have 4 fields of 10 bytes, the length of each record will be 41) - that value is also available in the header: bytes 10-11 - 16-bit number - Number of bytes in the record. (Least significant byte first)
The file could end with the end-of-file marker 0x1A, so you'll have to check for that as well.
i need vb.net equivlants of php fopen, fseek, and fwrite... also, i need to read and write data, not just text. I need to write data at specific byte position to x amount of bytes, as well as read at byte position to x amount of bytes...
Yes look at the System.IO.File class.
use the 'Open' method to get a FileStream. This has the functions your looking for i.e. seek,read,write
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/system.io.file_members(v=vs.80).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/system.io.filestream.write(v=vs.80).aspx
I spent almost a day for this , but did not get success.
What i want to do is, i have a binary file "data.dat"
I want to read the file contents and output it in text format in say "data.txt" in php.
I tried unpack function of php, but requires the type to be mentioned as the first argument(May be i am wrong, new to php).
$data = fread($file, 4); // 4 is the byte size of a whole on a 32-bit PC.
$content= unpack("C", $data); //C for unsigned charecter , i for int and so on...
But what if i dont know that at what place , what type of data is stored in the file that i am reading?
This function is restricting me because of the type.
I want something similar to this
$content= unpack("s", $data); //where s can denote to string
Thanks.
PHP does not have a "binary" type. Binary data is stored in strings. If you read binary data from a file, it's already stored as a string. You do not need to convert it into a string.
If the binary data already represents text in some standard encoding, you don't need to do anything as you already have a valid string. If the binary data represents some encoding, you need to know what you need to do with it, we don't know.
I understand the differences between fgets() and fgetss() but I don't get the difference between fgets() and fread(), can someone please clarify this subject? Which one is faster? Thanks!
fgets reads a line -- i.e. it will stop at a newline.
fread reads raw data -- it will stop after a specified (or default) number of bytes, independently of any newline that might or might not be present.
Speed is not a reason to use one over the other, as those two functions just don't do the same thing :
If you want to read a line, from a text file, then use fgets
If you want to read some data (not necessarily a line) from a file, then use fread.
fread() for binary data and fread has a limit on how many chars you can read
$source_file = fopen( $filename, "r" ) or die("Couldn't open $filename");
while (!feof($source_file)) {
$buffer = fread($source_file, 5);
var_dump($buffer); //return string with length 5 chars!
}
Number 5 is length bytes have been read .
The function fgets reads a single line from a text file. It is reading so long until the end of the current line (or the end of the file) is reached. Therefore, if you would like to read one line from a text file, you should use fgets.
The function fread not only reads until the end of the line but to the end of the file [e.g. fread($handle)] or as many bytes as specified as a parameter [e.g. fread($handle, 1024)]. So, if you would like to read a complete file, no matter whether it is a text file with all containing lines or arbitrary raw data from a file, you should use fread.
Both the functions are used to read data from files
fgets($filename, $bytes)
fgets usually reads $bytes-1 amount of data and stops at a newline or an EOF(end-of-file) whichever comes first. If the bytes are not specified, then the default value is 1024 bytes.
fread($filename, $bytes)
fread reads exactly $bytes amount of data and stops only at EOF.
The accepted answer is correct, but there is one more case for fread to stop reading. fread has a chunk limit of 8192 bytes. I discovered this when I was getting different results from fread($stream, 8300) and fget($stream, 8300).
From fread docs:
if the stream is read buffered and it does not represent a plain file, at most one read of up to a number of bytes equal to the chunk size (usually 8192) is made; depending on the previously buffered data, the size of the returned data may be larger than the chunk size.
What I need is an equivalent for PHP's fseek() function. The function works on files, but I have a variable that contains binary data and I want to work on it. I know I could use substr(), but that would be lame - it's used for strings, not for binary data. Also, creating a file and then using fseek() is not what I am looking for either.
Maybe something constructed with streams?
EDIT: Okay, I'm almost there:
$data = fopen('data://application/binary;binary,'.$bin,'rb');
Warning: failed to open stream: rfc2397: illegal parameter
Kai:
You have almost answered yourself here. Streams are the answer. The following manual entry will be enlightening: http://us.php.net/manual/en/wrappers.data.php
It essentially allows you to pass arbitrary data to PHP's file handling functions such as fopen (and thus fseek).
Then you could do something like:
<?php
$data = fopen('data://mime/type;encoding,' . $binaryData);
fseek($data, 128);
?>
fseek on data in a variable doesn't make sense. fseek just positions the file handle to the specified offset, so the next fread call starts reading from that offset. There is no equivalent of fread for strings.
Whats wrong with substr()?
With a file you would do:
$f = fopen(...)
fseek($f, offset)
$x = fread($f, len)
with substr:
$x = substr($var, offset, len)
I'm guessing, but maybe what is being asked for is a way to access bytes in a variable by using a pointer.. (using it like an array of bytes like you could do in c - without the memory overhead of putting the data in php arrays) and being able to edit them inplace without the overhead of copying the data.
Not being able to do this is a BIG problem, but if the operating system caches disk data well using fseek on a temporary file could be a workaround.