File handling in PHP allows you to open, read, write, and close files. The readfile() function reads a file and outputs the contents, while fopen() opens or creates a file and returns a file pointer. Fread(), fgets(), and fgetc() can then be used to read the file, and fwrite() writes to the file. It is important to close files using fclose() after opening them. Forms with enctype="multipart/form-data" allow files to be uploaded, with the upload being handled by a PHP script which saves the file and checks if it is an allowed type.
File handling in PHP allows you to open, read, write, and close files. The readfile() function reads a file and outputs the contents, while fopen() opens or creates a file and returns a file pointer. Fread(), fgets(), and fgetc() can then be used to read the file, and fwrite() writes to the file. It is important to close files using fclose() after opening them. Forms with enctype="multipart/form-data" allow files to be uploaded, with the upload being handled by a PHP script which saves the file and checks if it is an allowed type.
File handling in PHP allows you to open, read, write, and close files. The readfile() function reads a file and outputs the contents, while fopen() opens or creates a file and returns a file pointer. Fread(), fgets(), and fgetc() can then be used to read the file, and fwrite() writes to the file. It is important to close files using fclose() after opening them. Forms with enctype="multipart/form-data" allow files to be uploaded, with the upload being handled by a PHP script which saves the file and checks if it is an allowed type.
File handling in PHP allows you to open, read, write, and close files. The readfile() function reads a file and outputs the contents, while fopen() opens or creates a file and returns a file pointer. Fread(), fgets(), and fgetc() can then be used to read the file, and fwrite() writes to the file. It is important to close files using fclose() after opening them. Forms with enctype="multipart/form-data" allow files to be uploaded, with the upload being handled by a PHP script which saves the file and checks if it is an allowed type.
File handling is an important part of any web application.
You often need to open and process a file for different tasks.
PHP Manipulating Files
PHP has several functions for creating, reading, uploading, and editing files.
Be careful when manipulating files!
When you are manipulating files you must be very careful.
You can do a lot of damage if you do something wrong. Common
errors are: editing the wrong file, filling a hard-drive with garbage data, and deleting the content of a file by accident.
PHP readfile() Function
The readfile() function reads a file and writes it to the output buffer.
Assume we have a text file called "webdictionary.txt", stored on the
server, that looks like this:
AJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
CSS = Cascading Style Sheets HTML = Hyper Text Markup Language PHP = PHP Hypertext Preprocessor SQL = Structured Query Language SVG = Scalable Vector Graphics XML = EXtensible Markup Language
The PHP code to read the file and write it to the output buffer is as follows (the readfile() function returns the number of bytes read on success):
Example <?php echo readfile("webdictionary.txt"); ?>
The readfile() function is useful if all you want to do is open up a file
and read its contents.
The next chapters will teach you more about file handling. PHP Open File - fopen() A better method to open files is with the fopen() function. This function gives you more options than the readfile() function.
We will use the text file, "webdictionary.txt", during the lessons:
AJAX = Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
CSS = Cascading Style Sheets HTML = Hyper Text Markup Language PHP = PHP Hypertext Preprocessor SQL = Structured Query Language SVG = Scalable Vector Graphics XML = EXtensible Markup Language
The first parameter of fopen() contains the name of the file to be
opened and the second parameter specifies in which mode the file should be opened. The following example also generates a message if the fopen() function is unable to open the specified file:
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("webdictionary.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!"); echo fread($myfile,filesize("webdictionary.txt")); fclose($myfile); ?>
Tip: The fread() and the fclose() functions will be explained below.
The file may be opened in one of the following modes:
Modes Description
r Open a file for read only. File pointer starts at the
beginning of the file
w Open a file for write only. Erases the contents of the file or creates a new file if it doesn't exist. File pointer starts at the beginning of the file
a Open a file for write only. The existing data in file is
preserved. File pointer starts at the end of the file. Creates a new file if the file doesn't exist x Creates a new file for write only. Returns FALSE and an error if file already exists
r+ Open a file for read/write. File pointer starts at the
beginning of the file
w+ Open a file for read/write. Erases the contents of the file
or creates a new file if it doesn't exist. File pointer starts at the beginning of the file
a+ Open a file for read/write. The existing data in file is
preserved. File pointer starts at the end of the file. Creates a new file if the file doesn't exist
x+ Creates a new file for read/write. Returns FALSE and an
error if file already exists
PHP Read File - fread()
The fread() function reads from an open file.
The first parameter of fread() contains the name of the file to read from and the second parameter specifies the maximum number of bytes to read.
The following PHP code reads the "webdictionary.txt" file to the end:
fread($myfile,filesize("webdictionary.txt"));
PHP Close File - fclose()
The fclose() function is used to close an open file.
It's a good programming practice to close all files after you have finished with them. You don't want an open file running around on your server taking up resources!
The fclose() requires the name of the file (or a variable that holds the filename) we want to close: <?php $myfile = fopen("webdictionary.txt", "r"); // some code to be executed.... fclose($myfile); ?>
PHP Read Single Line - fgets()
The fgets() function is used to read a single line from a file.
The example below outputs the first line of the "webdictionary.txt" file:
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("webdictionary.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!"); echo fgets($myfile); fclose($myfile); ?>
Note: After a call to the fgets() function, the file pointer has moved to the next line.
PHP Check End-Of-File - feof()
The feof() function checks if the "end-of-file" (EOF) has been reached.
The feof() function is useful for looping through data of unknown
length.
The example below reads the "webdictionary.txt" file line by line, until end-of-file is reached:
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("webdictionary.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!"); // Output one line until end-of-file while(!feof($myfile)) { echo fgets($myfile) . "<br>"; } fclose($myfile); ?> PHP Read Single Character - fgetc() The fgetc() function is used to read a single character from a file.
The example below reads the "webdictionary.txt" file character by
character, until end-of-file is reached:
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("webdictionary.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!"); // Output one character until end-of-file while(!feof($myfile)) { echo fgetc($myfile); } fclose($myfile); ?>
Note: After a call to the fgetc() function, the file pointer moves to the next character.
PHP Create File - fopen()
The fopen() function is also used to create a file. Maybe a little confusing, but in PHP, a file is created using the same function used to open files.
If you use fopen() on a file that does not exist, it will create it, given that the file is opened for writing (w) or appending (a).
The example below creates a new file called "testfile.txt". The file will be created in the same directory where the PHP code resides:
Example $myfile = fopen("testfile.txt", "w")
PHP File Permissions
If you are having errors when trying to get this code to run, check that you have granted your PHP file access to write information to the hard drive. PHP Write to File - fwrite() The fwrite() function is used to write to a file.
The first parameter of fwrite() contains the name of the file to write to and the second parameter is the string to be written.
The example below writes a couple of names into a new file called "newfile.txt":
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("newfile.txt", "w") or die("Unable to open file!"); $txt = "Souhail Laghchim\n"; fwrite($myfile, $txt); $txt = "Souhail Laghchim\n"; fwrite($myfile, $txt); fclose($myfile); ?>
Notice that we wrote to the file "newfile.txt" twice. Each time we wrote to the file we sent the string $txt that first contained "John Doe" and second contained "Jane Doe". After we finished writing, we closed the file using the fclose() function.
If we open the "newfile.txt" file it would look like this:
Souhail Laghchim Souhail Laghchim PHP Overwriting Now that "newfile.txt" contains some data we can show what happens when we open an existing file for writing. All the existing data will be ERASED and we start with an empty file.
In the example below we open our existing file "newfile.txt", and write some new data into it:
Example <?php $myfile = fopen("newfile.txt", "w") or die("Unable to open file!"); $txt = "Mickey Mouse\n"; fwrite($myfile, $txt); $txt = "Minnie Mouse\n"; fwrite($myfile, $txt); fclose($myfile); ?>
If we now open the "newfile.txt" file, both John and Jane have vanished, and only the data we just wrote is present:
Mickey Mouse Minnie Mouse
With PHP, it is easy to upload files to the server.
However, with ease comes danger, so always be careful when
allowing file uploads!
Configure The "php.ini" File
First, ensure that PHP is configured to allow file uploads.
In your "php.ini" file, search for the file_uploads directive, and set it to On:
file_uploads = On Create The HTML Form Next, create an HTML form that allow users to choose the image file they want to upload:
The form also needs the following attribute: enctype="multipart/form-data". It specifies which content-type to use when submitting the form
Without the requirements above, the file upload will not work.
Other things to notice:
The type="file" attribute of the <input> tag shows the input field as a file-select control, with a "Browse" button next to the input control
The form above sends data to a file called "upload.php", which we will create next. Create The Upload File PHP Script The "upload.php" file contains the code for uploading a file:
<?php $target_dir = "uploads/"; $target_file = $target_dir . basename($_FILES["fileToUpload"]["name"]); $uploadOk = 1; $imageFileType = strtolower(pathinfo($target_file,PATHINFO_EXTENSION)); // Check if image file is a actual image or fake image if(isset($_POST["submit"])) { $check = getimagesize($_FILES["fileToUpload"]["tmp_name"]); if($check !== false) { echo "File is an image - " . $check["mime"] . "."; $uploadOk = 1; } else { echo "File is not an image."; $uploadOk = 0; } } ?>
PHP script explained:
$target_dir = "uploads/" - specifies the directory where the file
is going to be placed $target_file specifies the path of the file to be uploaded $uploadOk=1 is not used yet (will be used later) $imageFileType holds the file extension of the file (in lower case) Next, check if the image file is an actual image or a fake image
Note: You will need to create a new directory called "uploads" in the directory where "upload.php" file resides. The uploaded files will be saved there. Check if File Already Exists Now we can add some restrictions.
First, we will check if the file already exists in the "uploads" folder. If it does, an error message is displayed, and $uploadOk is set to 0:
if ($uploadOk == 0) { echo "Sorry, your file was not uploaded."; // if everything is ok, try to upload file } else { if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES["fileToUpload"]["tmp_name"], $target_file)) { echo "The file ". htmlspecialchars( basename( $_FILES["fileToUpload"]["name"])). " has been uploaded."; } else { echo "Sorry, there was an error uploading your file."; } } ?>
