Write to line in file.

[websponge]

Hi, I have been able to write to a text file, then another page can read from that file, all good.. Problem is I'm using multiple txt files just to set various variables. There is a reason I'm not using a database.

Can I somehow, write to a file after a certain marker is found ?

I.e, if I had in my txt file:

variable1

variable2

I could write to the text file a value, after it saw #variable2
So it would then read

variable2mypostedvalue ?

And of course do the same in reverse when reading the file?

Thanks

[minitauros]

Hm yes I guess you could. You can place the internal pointer of a file to a specific position using fseek(). However, I've never used it before myself, so I wouldn't know exactly how to use it.

What you COULD do is, if you know the exact value of the variable you are seeking, use a strpos() or stripos() to find the offset of the word you are looking for, then split the string there and insert whatever you want to insert. For example:

<?php
// Imaginary file contents.
$file_contents = 'This is a file. It contains text.';

// We're looking for this word:
$looking_for = 'file';

// We want to add this word after the word we're looking for:
$add = '. It is HUGE.';

// Find its offset.
$offset = stripos($file_contents, $looking_for);

// Split the string.
$substr_to = $offset + strlen($looking_for);
$part_1 = substr($file_contents, 0, $substr_to);
$part_2 = substr($file_contents, $substr_to);

$new_file_contents = $part_1 . $add . $part_2;

// $new_file_contents is now:
// 'This is a file. It is HUGE. It contains text.';

[JorgeM]

Is the text file a requirement? Have you considered using an XML file which could provide you with better/easier structure to handle?

also, you mention storing variables..is this because you need to keep some variable for long term storage, more than just a user's session? Or are you trying to store some type of global variable?

[websponge]

I have a large wall monitor at work, that needs to display where an engineer is on a certain job, so i have WAMP running on my desktop PC and the wall screen points to the results.php page, on my desktop I can write the variables to a text file, so that when the wall screen is refreshed it reads the results from the text file.

there are a few different things the screen displays, so wanted to have 1 text file that can be overwritten on certain lines..

[minitauros]

What about using a .csv file? These files can be easily edited using Microsoft Excel and can be easily read and traversed by PHP.

[websponge]

I wanted to do that originally, but wasnt sure how you go about writing to certain places in a CSV file.. if its easier Ill do that, could you advise how I can write to a certain place in a CSV then?

[minitauros]

Well for as far as I know there exist PHP functions for reading a CSV file to an array. You can then modify that array, add whatever you want, and then overwrite the CSV file with the new info. That is how I think it should work. Check out fgetcsv().

Also, if the file is not too big, you could also just serialize an array and write that to a file. That way you can work with an array even more easily.