Creating a text file with PHP?

php text fopen fwrite chmod
hayleyelisa picture hayleyelisa · May 3, 2013 · Viewed 14k times · Source

I'm trying to use PHP to create a text file, but I keep getting the "can't open file" error. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

chmod('text.txt', 0777);

$textFile = "text.txt";
$fileHandle = fopen($textFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
$stringData = "Hello!";
fwrite($fileHandle, $stringData);
fclose($fileHandle);

Answer

Samuel Cook picture Samuel Cook · May 3, 2013

You're not going to be able to chmod() a file that doesn't exists. You must have write privileges on the parent folder in order to allow Apache (if your running Apache, otherwise whichever user your allowing to write the file) as a user to write inside of that folder (whether it is the root, or a sub folder).

Additionally, you should do some error handling on your file writing:

<?php
if($fh = fopen('text.txt','w')){
    $stringData = "Hello!";
    fwrite($fh, $stringData,1024);
    fclose($fh);
}

Hope this helps!

Related questions

Efficiently counting the number of lines of a text file. (200mb+)

I have just found out that my script gives me a fatal error: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 440 bytes) in C:\process_txt.php on line 109 That line is this: $lines = count(file($path)) …

Read More
Remove Text Between Parentheses PHP

I'm just wondering how I could remove the text between a set of parentheses and the parentheses themselves in php. Example : ABC (Test1) I would like it to delete (Test1) and only leave ABC Thanks

Read More
FPDF: Change text color while inside a Cell?

I want it so that the text saying white will use SetTextColor as white, and the orange to use orange. $pdf->SetTextColor(255,255,255); $pdf->Cell(50,0,'WHITE ORANGE ORANGE WHITE',0,1,'C'); How do I affect the 'ORANGE' words to use …

Read More