Code Examples -> Working with files - putting file contents to a string / var

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PHP Code Examples

Title :	Working with files - putting file contents to a string / var
Categories :	PHP, Filesystem, Variables, Strings	Justin French
Date :	May 04th 2003
Grade :	4 of 5 (graded 1 times)
Viewed :	5084
File :	No file for this code example.
Images :	No Images for this code example.

Search :	More code by Justin French
Action :	Grade This Code Example
Tools :	My Examples List

Code

This example is really helpfull when you want to manipulate the contents fo a file before echoing
it to the screen, or whatever, which can't be done with include().

function file2str($file)
        {

        /*
        returns the contents of a file relative to the
        current directory of the parent PHP script
        */

        if(file_exists($file))
                {
                $fd = fopen($file, "r");
                $fileContents = fread($fd, filesize($file));
                fclose($fd);
                }
        else
                {
                $fileContents = "File {$file} does not exist";
                }
        return $fileContents;
        }

Example:
<?
// get the file in a str
$myText = file2str('dir/dir/file.txt');

// manipulate
$myText = nl2br(ucfirst($myText));
$myText = str_replace('me','you',$myText);

echo $myText;
?>

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User Comments

	Justin French wrote : 945 `Actually, I forgot to mention that PHP > 4.3 supports the function file_get_contents() [http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.file-get-contents.php] too :)`
	Sjors Valk wrote : 946 Well, I would say you just rewrote the native functions file_get_contents($file) and implode(``, file($file)).
	Sjors Valk wrote :947 `Mmm, seems we posted our remarks at the same time :)`