WeberDev.com -> PHP Manual -> Write a string to a file

Description

int file_put_contents ( string $filename , mixed $data [, int $flags [, resource $context ]] )

This function is identical to calling fopen(), fwrite() and fclose() successively to write data to a file.

If filename does not exist, the file is created. Otherwise, the existing file is overwritten, unless the FILE_APPEND flags is set.

Parameters

filename

Path to the file where to write the data.

data

The data to write. Can be either a string, an array or a stream resource (explained above).

If data is a stream resource, the remaining buffer of that stream will be copied to the specified file. This is similar with using stream_copy_to_stream().

You can also specify the data parameter as a single dimension array. This is equivalent to file_put_contents($filename, implode('', $array)).

flags

The value of flags can be any combination of the following flags (with some restrictions), joined with the binary OR (|) operator.

**Available flags**
Flag	Description
`FILE_USE_INCLUDE_PATH`	Search for `filename` in the include directory. See include_path for more information.
`FILE_APPEND`	If file `filename` already exists, append the data to the file instead of overwriting it.
`LOCK_EX`	Acquire an exclusive lock on the file while proceeding to the writing.
`FILE_TEXT`	`data` is written in text mode. If unicode semantics are enabled, the default encoding is UTF-8. You can specify a different encoding by creating a custom context or by using the stream_default_encoding() to change the default. This flag cannot be used with `FILE_BINARY`. This flag is only available since PHP 6.
`FILE_BINARY`	`data` will be written in binary mode. This is the default setting and cannot be used with `FILE_TEXT`. This flag is only available since PHP 6.

context

A valid context resource created with stream_context_create().

Return Values

The function returns the number of bytes that were written to the file, or FALSE on failure.

Changelog

Version	Description
5.0.0	Added context support
5.1.0	Added support for `LOCK_EX` and the ability to pass a stream resource to the `data` parameter
6.0.0	Added support for the `FILE_TEXT` and `FILE_BINARY` flags

Notes

Note: This function is binary-safe.

Tip

A URL can be used as a filename with this function if the fopen wrappers have been enabled. See fopen() for more details on how to specify the filename and List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a list of supported URL protocols.