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Alan @ CIT · 12-30-2007, 12:32 AM

Opening files using fopen/fclose can be a bit confusing at first. Here's a little example code which will hopefully clear things up a bit

PHP Code:


			
// This will open the file "myfile.txt" for reading (note the 2nd argument - "r" - you can use "w" for writing).  $file will then point to your newly opened file in memory.  Note: at this point, all that has happened is that the file has been opened for reading - nothing has been read yet



$file = fopen('myfile.txt', 'r');



// The following code will read 2000 bytes from the file that we opened above (see how the $file pointer comes in to play here).



$contents = fread($file, 2000);



// As a further example, if you wanted to read the entire file, you would take advantage of the filesize() function like so:



$contents = fread($file, filesize('myfile.txt'));  // will read the entire file and store the contents in $contents



// When you are done with your file, you will want to close it.  To do this, we use the fclose() function:



fclose($file);

fopen() can do other fancy things such as opening URLs for reading. For more info on reading/writing to files using fopen/fread/fwrite/fclose see:

PHP: fopen - Manual
PHP: fread - Manual
PHP: fwrite - Manual
PHP: fclose - Manual

All have excellent examples which you can work from.

Alan.

12-30-2007, 12:32 AM	#8 (permalink)
Alan @ CIT Member of the Month The Frequenter Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: South UK Posts: 483 Thanks: 51	Opening files using fopen/fclose can be a bit confusing at first. Here's a little example code which will hopefully clear things up a bit PHP Code: // This will open the file "myfile.txt" for reading (note the 2nd argument - "r" - you can use "w" for writing). $file will then point to your newly opened file in memory. Note: at this point, all that has happened is that the file has been opened for reading - nothing has been read yet $file = fopen('myfile.txt', 'r'); // The following code will read 2000 bytes from the file that we opened above (see how the $file pointer comes in to play here). $contents = fread($file, 2000); // As a further example, if you wanted to read the entire file, you would take advantage of the filesize() function like so: $contents = fread($file, filesize('myfile.txt')); // will read the entire file and store the contents in $contents // When you are done with your file, you will want to close it. To do this, we use the fclose() function: fclose($file); fopen() can do other fancy things such as opening URLs for reading. For more info on reading/writing to files using fopen/fread/fwrite/fclose see: PHP: fopen - Manual PHP: fread - Manual PHP: fwrite - Manual PHP: fclose - Manual All have excellent examples which you can work from. Alan.