How would I include into a variable?

Aaron · 12-29-2007, 06:53 AM

How would I have something like this work:

$pass = include("pass.txt");

It is moi importante.

Village Idiot · 12-29-2007, 06:54 AM

Look into file handling.

xenon · 12-29-2007, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaron

How would I have something like this work:

$pass = include("pass.txt");

It is moi importante.

You have to return the output (or what you need) from that include file, just like you would in a function. Here's an example:

include.php

Code:

$x = 2+4;
return $x;

index.php:

Code:

$sum = include_once 'include.php';
echo $sum * 4; // should output 24

deflated · 12-29-2007, 04:25 PM

Thank you very much, xenon. That's totally new to me.

Alan @ CIT · 12-29-2007, 11:09 PM

For regular files (ie, files that don't have any PHP code that needs parsing), I would recommend using file_get_contents():

PHP Code:


			
$contents = file_get_contents('my_text_file.txt');



// $contents will now contain everything that was in my_text_file.txt

Alan

ReSpawN · 12-30-2007, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan @ CIT

For regular files (ie, files that don't have any PHP code that needs parsing), I would recommend using file_get_contents():

PHP Code:


			
$contents = file_get_contents('my_text_file.txt');



// $contents will now contain everything that was in my_text_file.txt

Alan

Honestly the best way. Make sure you have PHP, preferably 4.30 +. Else it completely screws up the code or it doesn't work at all. You can also use file handeling like fopen.

Aaron · 12-30-2007, 12:22 AM

Yeah, I completely forgot to think about using file handles. The variables when you use those things are weird to me, though.

Like,

$connect = fopen(); (or whatever the syntax is) isn't a variable, but it connects to the file, SQL database, FTP, or whatever you are messing with.

(I am completely confused between these functions... So that is probably the wrong syntax).

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.

xenon · 12-30-2007, 09:43 AM

The problem is quite simple. If you need to get the contents of a file unaltered, read the file contents and parse it. If you need to perform php operations in a file and just capture the result, use include/require (and they're _once forms).

Now, for the handles. Think of a handle as a door and the variable that references the handle as the key to the door. You need the key every time you use the door. Check out the analogy with the actual code:

PHP Code:


			
// get the 'door key'
$fh = fopen('filename.txt.', 'rb');
// you need to use the key every time you do an operation that involves using 'the door'
// read the file, line by line
while( $line = fgets( $fh, 1024 ) )
{
echo $line;
}
// lock the 'door' & destroy the 'key' when you're done
fclose( $fh );